3. Mark Pincus founded Zynga in April
2007 under the name Presidio Media;
the company name changed to Zynga
in July 2007. The early supporting
founding team included Eric
Schiermeyer, Michael Luxton, Justin
Waldron, Kyle Stewart, Scott Dale,
Steve Schoettler, Kevin Hagan, and
Andrew Trader.
5. They received US$29 million
in venture finance from
several firms, led by
Kleiner Perkins Caufield &
Byers in July 2008, at which
time they appointed former
Electronic Arts Chief
Creative Officer Bing Gordon
to the board.
6. At that time, they also
bought YoVille, a large
virtual world social
network game. According
to the company's
website, as of December
2009, it had 60 million
unique daily active
users.
7. ZYNGA was named after
an American bulldog
named Zynga once owned
by Mark Pincus.They use
an image of a bulldog
as their logo.
9. On Feb. 17, 2010, Zynga
open Zynga india in
Bangalore, The
company’s first office
outside the United
States.
10. March 18, 2010 –
Zynga confirmed that
it will open a
second international
office in Ireland.
11. May 7, 2010 – Michael
Arrington of TechCrunch
reported that Zynga Was
threatening to leave
Facebook Altogether in the
wake of Facebook’s requiring
exclusive use of Facebook
credits for Monetization in
application.
12. After Facebook
negotiations for having
Zynga host its games
solely on Facebook fell
through, Facebook
retaliated by shutting
off notifications for
several Zynga
games, including
13. Plans surfaced for Zynga to
distance itself from
Facebook by creating a new
"Zynga Live" network, to be
called ZLive. On May
18, 2010, Facebook and Zynga
entered into a five-year
relationship to expand the
use of Facebook Credits in
Zynga's games.
14. Sheryl Sandberg, COO of
Facebook, was quoted as
saying, "We are pleased to
enter into a new agreement
with Zynga to enhance the
experience for Facebook
users who play Zynga games."
15. The companies stated they
were testing the use of
Facebook Credits, which
would allow Facebook to
effectively capture 30% of
any user's spending in the
game, and their use would be
gradually rolled out to all
games.
16. In a May 24, 2011
discussion at TechCrunch
Disrupt, Arrington and
Bing Gordon described the
incident as the "Cuban
Missile Crisis of tech".
18. October 5, 2010 – Bonfire
studios was acquired by
Zynga. It was renamed
“Zynga Dallas”. The
Acquisition brought
Zynga’s workforce to more
than 1,300 employees
worldwide.
20. On December 2, 2010, Zynga
announced that it acquired
the Texas-based mobile game
developer
Newtoy, Inc., developers of
the game "Words with
Friends",and renamed the
studio to Zynga With
Friends.
21. In December 2010, Zynga's
game CityVille surpassed
FarmVille as its most
popular game with over 61
million monthly active users
and a base of over
16 million daily active
users.
22. Zynga has acquired the
New York-based game
developer Area/Code, now
renamed Zynga New York.
23. In March 2011, Zynga
announced the acquisition of
the team from Massachusetts
game developer
Floodgate Entertainment. It
was Zynga's tenth
acquisition in ten months.
24. In April 2011, Zynga
announced the
acquisition of
MarketZero, an online
poker tracker company
26. In April 2011, the company
partnered with Lady Gaga in
a new game offering. In May
2011, the company was
reported to be in the
process of raising an
additional $500 million with
a valuation at $10 billion
27. In May 2011, the
company launched its
most complicated
game to date—Empires
and Allies.
28. As of July 1, 2011, the
company had 2,000 employees.
In September 2011, Zynga
announced that their biggest
game CityVille has made the
transition to google+ after
about 95% decline in their
profits.