Zynga Shows Investors It Has a Chance

via allthingsd.com

Zynga’s fourth-quarter earnings are just rolling in, and they look good compared to the company’s already lowered expectations for the period.

Minutes after the release went out, Zynga’s stock was up nearly 5 percent to $2.88 a share. During regular trading today, Zynga’s shares were already higher based on an analyst’s upgrade.

Here’s what it reported:

The social games company said bookings for the year totaled $1.15 billion to beat the company’s forecast of $1.1 billion (bookings account for the sales from virtual goods that occur in the fourth quarter).

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Chief Game Designer Brian Reynolds Leaves Zynga

Another key member of Zynga’s team has left the beleaguered social game maker. This time it’s chief game designer Brian Reynolds, as first reported on Polygon. The company confirmed Reynolds’ departure, but did not offer any details about why Reynolds is leaving or his last day. In a statement, Steve Chiang, president of games, said:

“Brian has a long history in the game industry and has been a great partner to the creative leaders at Zynga. I want to thank him for his leadership of the Zynga Baltimore studio in the design and development of FrontierVille, which brought many innovations to social gaming. We appreciate Brian’s contribution and we’re proud of the deep bench of creative leaders who are leading the next wave of game innovation at Zynga. We wish Brian the best in his next chapter.”

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Zynga Sues EA, Files Rebuttal and Countersuit

via allthingsd.com

Zynga responded to Electronic Arts’ copyright infringement claims on Friday with a defense of its version of a “life simulation” game and a counterclaim that alleges the game giant illegally interfered with its recruiting.

Zynga filed a pair of motions to rebut Electronic Arts’ claims in the original filing, arguing that The Ville on Facebook is not a carbon copy of EA’s The Sims Social. And in a third filing, it countersued, alleging that EA participated in unlawful actions, including anti-competitive business practices, when it came to recruiting employees.

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An Exclusive Interview With Zynga CEO Mark Pincus

via businessinsider.com

The Chairman and CEO of Zynga, Mark Pincus, rarely grants interviews. After months of trying, GamesIndustry International was finally able to sit down with Pincus for an extended interview; one of the longest he's ever given in fact. What followed is a wide-ranging discussion about Zynga and games, and where Pincus sees the opportunities for Zynga.

Mark Pincus is, according to Forbes, the 256th wealthiest individual in the United States, with a net worth in the neighborhood of $1.8 billion. He's a serial entrepreneur, having founded several other technology companies before Zynga. He has a B.S. in Economics from Wharton, and his MBA from Harvard Business School.

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OMGPOP Draws Zynga’s Daily User Traffic Up By 25%

As the dust settles after Zynga’s purchase of New York mobile social game developer OMGPOP, the company is visibly taking on a new shape. A 25% larger and more mobile one. That’s the percentage growth of its total daily active user base, when you add in the 14.6 million people playing mobile sketching app Draw Something to its existing 55 million players.

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A Former Zynga Manager Explains How Draw Something Became The Hottest App On The Planet

via businessinsider.com

Zynga just bought OMGPOP, the developer of hit app Draw Something, for ~$200 million just last week after the app took off like a rocket.

But how was it so successful?

Nabeel Hyatt, a former Zynga general manager, has given a few reasons in a response on Quora:

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Zynga CEO Selling $225 Million Of Stock

via businessinsider.com

Zynga CEO Mark Pincus will be selling 16.5 million shares, or 15% of his stake, in the company's secondary offering, according to its latest SEC filing.

Based on yesterday's closing price that equals $227 million. Assuming a small discount to where it's trading, Pincus probably pocket $225 million.

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Zynga Explains Its Titanic $200 Million Acquisition Of Draw Something

via businessinsider.com

Hours after Zynga paid ~$200 million for social gaming startup OMGPOP, we sat down with CEO Dan Porter to find out more about the decision. He was joined by Zynga's chief mobile exec David Ko.

While Zynga is technically buying OMGPOP, the reality is that it's buying "Draw Something," a six-week old game that already has 35 million users, and generates $250,000 in revenue on a daily basis.

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Angry Birds Space Is Out And It's Amazing!

via businessinsider.com

The wait is over.

Rovio just released Angry Birds Space.

Yes, it's awesome.
Instead of the same old boring physics as other Angry Birds titles, this one uses a combination of gravity wells and zero-G to launch your birds into orbit around tiny planetoids.

It's a blast.

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Zynga Buys the Company that made the Draw Something game (OMGPOP)

via theglobeandmail.com

Zynga Inc. is buying OMGPOP, maker of the popular video game “Draw Something” in its biggest acquisition to date as the company moves to expand its lineup of games on mobile devices and Facebook.

A source familiar with the matter told Reuters that Zynga bought the New York-based company for about $200-million (U.S.). The company declined to comment on the deal’s financials on a conference call on Wednesday.

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[Interview] How Zynga Is Transforming Games With HTML5

via readwriteweb.com

Social gaming platform Zynga takes a lot of flak for its overbearing management practices and obsession with metrics over user experience. While those rumors may or may not be true, there is more to Zynga than calculating sessions lengths and daily average users. In fact, Zynga's Germany branch is one of the global leaders in HTML5 development and creating dynamic mobile Web games. We chatted with Zynga Germany CTO Paul Bakaus about how Zynga approaches HTML5, what are the limitations of the spec and if we will ever see a Facebook app store.

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Zynga online gambling could mean real money, but real problems

via news.cnet.com

Zynga's possible plans to enter online gambling spurs a bipolar reaction for me. The capitalist in me drools over the potential business model, but the do-gooder worries about gambling addiction and sees an epic societal train wreck ahead.

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More Evidence Gambling Could Be Zynga's Billion Dollar Salvation

via businessinsider.com

Social games like Zynga are addictive – as addictive as gambling.

And it turns out social games attract the same kinds of people you'd find in Vegas putting coins into a slot machine: middle-aged women.

Tyler York, a marketing guy at Betable, a company that is creating a betting marketplace, writes...

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BRUTAL! Zynga's Share Price Just Hit $8

via businessinsider.com

Shares of Zynga just hit $8, meaning the stock is down about 20 percent from its IPO price of $10. It's down more than 8 percent for the day and has been hovering around $8.10 for most of the day.

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Wall Street analysts calculate whether Zynga is worth $8.9B

via venturebeat.com

Zynga is about to begin trading as a public company on Thursday, but the value of the company is up for debate, based on reports from some well-known Wall Street analysts and other financial experts.

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How Zynga grew from gaming outcast to $9 billion social game powerhouse

via venturebeat.com

Zynga has turned the video game world upside down in its short five-year history. As it’s poised on the verge of a massive initial public offering, the social game startup is now one of gaming’s great success stories.

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Zynga IPO to raise up to $1-billion

via theglobeandmail.com

Zynga Inc. will brave difficult market conditions and resume its delayed initial public offering this month, seeking a market valuation of up to $7-billion (U.S.).

The maker of CityVille and FarmVille for mobile devices and social networks such as Facebook will seek to raise up to $1-billion by selling 100 million shares in a projected range of $8.50 to $10 a share.

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Zynga Will Go Public At A $10 Billion Valuation, Which Seems Insane

via businessinsider.com

Zynga has priced its IPO, and it is shooting for a $10 billion valuation, with a $8-10 price range, Reuters reports.

That's actually very expensive, roughly 10 times this year's revenue. Plenty of companies get valued at 10X revenues, so why should Zynga be any different?

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Angry Birds Turned Down A $2.25 Billion Takeout Offer From Zynga

via businessinsider.com

Zynga made huge offers to buy both PopCap, a top casual game developer, and Rovio, the developer behind the Angry Birds series, but both companies walked away from the deals thanks to Zynga's tough internal culture.

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Zynga Is Still Profitable, Made $12.5 Million In Third Quarter Off $307 Million In Revenue

via businessinsider.com

Zynga made $12.5 million in the third quarter this year — down 54 percent from $27 million in the third quarter last year — off $307 million in revenue, according to an updated S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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