Zynga is a social game developer founded in 2007 with over 320 million users. It is best known for games like FarmVille and CityVille. Zynga has grown aggressively through acquisitions and new games, now employing over 1300 across 13 studios in 6 countries. While games are free to play, Zynga generates billions in revenue through virtual goods purchases in games. There is potential for Zynga to create its own social gaming network and become the dominant player in its industry.
2. Products
Social Games
• Virtual World Games
• Role Playing Games
• Card Games
• Puzzle Games
Famous Games
• FarmVille - 63m users at its peak
• CityVille - Fastest growing game in history, first 100m users
• MafiaWars
• YoVille
3. History
• Founded in July 2007 by 6 people including Mark Pincus (Current
CEO).
• The company is named after an English Bulldog once owned by
Mark Pincus.
• Received $29m funding in July 2008.
• Appointed former EA Chief Creating Officer to the board
• Bought YoVille in 2008
4. Current Scenario
• Ten major games
• 13 studios
• Six countries
• 1300 employees
• Six acquisitions in six months
• 400 people on new intellectual property (IP)
• 320 million users
5. Money
All games are free
Virtual Currency
• Direct credit card payments to buy virtual products
• Replenish energy for playing the game faster than the normal
speed.
• Partner businesses - Take surveys or buy services from partners to
earn game credits
• Depends on small number of people spending large amounts of
money in the game
In March 2010, Zynga started selling prepaid cards in stores across
US
6. More Money Talk
Total funding: $519m
2010 Revenue: $850m
Profits: $400m
Recent valuations indicate Zynga is worth around $6-7b, surpassing
EA ($5.3b)
Expected IPO in 2013
8. Competitors
• Electronic Arts
o Recently acquired PlayFish
• Playdom
• Digital Chocolate
• CrowdStar
Zynga is acquiring companies aggressively
9. Secret Sauce
• Creator of widespread Social Gaming
• Other companies playing catch up
Numbers
• 10% of all internet users have played a Zynga game of some kind
• Around one petabyte (1000 terabytes) every day
• Servers are capable of handling a load of around three billion simultaneous
neighbor connections
• Aggressive expansion strategy
• Leveraging Social networks
10. Prediction
Potential to become the Google of Social Gaming
Create its own social gaming network
Recent News
• Hired entire 16 member team of MarketZero which
operates PokerTableRatings
• Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg appointed
to the board of directors.