Tag: zynga games

Mobile gaming investments rekindled

| January 31, 2013

investors mobile gamingInvestors taking a bold move on mobile gaming

For the past several months, investors around the world have been leery of mobile gaming and mobile ventures of all kinds. Many mobile-centric companies have been unable to deliver on their ambitious promises, which has translated into significant losses for several investors. These failures have done little to bolster the confidence investors have in the mobile space, but some of these investors are beginning to show a change of heart. Several parties have begun focusing on the battered mobile gaming and social gaming companies that saw turbulence throughout 2012.

Zynga continues to produce despite fall from grace

Zynga, the former champion of social mobile gaming, fell from grace in 2012.The company’s focus on creating addicting social games that borrowed heavily — at times too heavily — from other popular titles in the game industry eventually lost the favor of consumers. As people began to criticize Zynga, Facebook began to pull back its support of the developer. An exodus of investors had added insult to injury to the former gaming titan, but the developer continued its work.

Investors throw lifeline to Zynga and Glu Mobile

Zynga’s tenacity seems to be attracting the attention of new investors. Shares in the company have risen by 12.5% on Monday, the heaviest day of trading the developer has seen since November. This may be due to the developer’s rekindled focus on producing unique games of high quality for mobile consumers. Zynga is not the only developer that is seeing renewed investor interest. Glu Mobile, a developer that had been seeing trouble akin to that of Zynga, saw its shares spike by 16.5% on Monday.

Mobile gaming continues to be attractive market

Despite the problems some companies have been facing, mobile gaming is still considered a very powerful and lucrative market. Investors, though cautious, have shown that they are willing to take risks on developers that had proven their ability to establish a strong presence in this market in the past. If investor support for Zynga and Glu Mobile continues to grow, the two companies may soon find themselves back on top of the proverbial totem pole of mobile gaming.

Zynga confronts crisis with major overhaul

| December 29, 2012

zyngaZynga aims to recover from trouble through re-structuring

Once mammoth mobile and web game developer Zynga has hit a very rough patch recently. The company, which is behind some of the most popular online games in the world, such as Farmville, saw its stocks crash in recent months, falling 85% from its all-time high. Zynga has been a formidable name in the mobile gaming space for years, but has been confronted with problems that may be forcing the company to re-structure and re-consider its focus on social gaming.

Developer cuts 150 jobs as part of overhaul

Over the past several months, Zynga has seen lackluster performance with many of its games. This month, the company cut 150 jobs in an effort to save itself from financial ruin and to prepare itself for a major overhaul. The overhaul is being loosely dubbed as Zynga 2.0, but it is unlikely that the game development company will stray far from its mobile gaming roots or risk breaking new ground by developing games that may not find success. Ironically, this is part of the problem that lead Zynga to its current crisis.

Developer targeted by EA in copyright lawsuit

Zynga has long been criticized in the game industry, as well as others, for its focus on quick-to-market mobile and social games that are almost identical to well-established, successful games that come from major developers like Electronic Arts. The similarities between these games are so striking that Zynga has found itself in the midst of a copyright lawsuit from Electronic Arts, which claims that the company blatantly stole and used concepts from one of its popular games. While Zynga may have etched out some early success with its approach to gaming, this success garnered the company with a great deal of attention that it may have wanted to avoid.

Overhaul may bring Zynga back to the top

Despite the myriad problems that Zynga is facing, the company’s popular games still boast of a massive following. Farmville 2, for instance, claims some 45 million monthly active unique users. Zynga has seen less success in its mobile gaming ventures and the launch of other titles, but the company may be able to pull itself back from serious crisis if it can adopt a more quality-centric development formula.