The mobile app development company is putting everything into resurrecting its social game.
Not too long ago, Zynga dominated the Facebook mobile gaming scene, with its hugely popular app called FarmVille, which was the social equivalent of what Candy Crush Saga has become, today.
That said, the flood of smartphone apps available to consumers has knocked the pins out from under the company.
The competition among mobile app development companies is tremendous, and leading hits has become a nearly impossible feat for the vast majority for firms. After having been king on Facebook, Zynga’s dominance has since eroded to a massive degree. Many would consider the company to be on the edge of altogether irrelevance. However, the company is now hoping to launch an effort that will send itself back up to the top of social and mobile gaming.
Mobile gaming enthusiasts will soon be able to find a second version of the game they loved, in FarmVille2.
Zynga is also hoping to reboot two of its old smartphone and tablet based apps, “Zynga Poker” and “Words With Friends”. Don Mattrick, the CEO of the mobile app development firm, has acknowledged that the last little while hasn’t been easy for the company, particularly due to the massive number of competitors in the race. However, he also feels that they are on their way to catching up, once more.
He explained that “You’ve got to keep innovating; you’ve got to give people things that cause them surprise and delight.” That said, he also went on to point out that “But the first thing you’ve got to do is get your content there.”
Mattrick is a veteran of Electronic Arts, having been an executive there. He had also previously run the Xbox division at Microsoft, before he left that osition in order to replace Zynga’s co-founder, Mark Pincus. Now, it is his intention to debut as Zynga’s CEO in San Francisco at an investor conference of Morgan Stanley. This new leadership will coincide with the company’s efforts to fulfill its promise to make a larger push into mobile gaming and, it hopes, to bring itself back to unquestionable relevancy.
Samsung and EA team to push mobile games forward
Game industry giant Electronic Arts (EA) has teamed with Samsung Electronics to makes progress in the mobile games space. Samsung recently launched its own applications store to rival that of its long-time competitor Apple. The store is still in a fledgling state, but offers a wide variety of applications to consumers using Samsung mobile devices. The company has become heavily interested in mobile games and has been working to bring in more gaming applications to its new store, which has presented Electronic Arts with a very promising opportunity.
100% Indie initiative may attract developers to Samsung platform
EA and Samsung have teamed to launched the 100% Indie initiative, which is meant to attract developers of mobile games to the new Samsung app store. The initiative will provide developers with 100% of the revenue their mobile games generate through Samsung’s platform for their first six months, higher than the typical 30% developers usually get from other platforms. The initiative is scheduled to launch on March 4, 2013.
Higher revenue shares could be very alluring to developers
After the six month period had expired, developers with mobile games on the Samsung platform will give 10% of the revenue their games produce from that point forward to the company, keeping the rest for themselves. The following year, Samsung’s share rises to 20%, with the company’s share capping at 30% after two years. Samsung believes that developers being able to keep a higher share of their revenue, especially during the first six months of the launch of a new game, could be very lucrative to innovative and ambitious independent developers.
Samsung shows strong interest in mobile games publishing
Samsung recently overtook competitor Apple as the world’s largest smart phone seller. With the help of EA, the company may soon establish itself as a leader in the realm of mobile games. While Samsung will not focus on developing mobile games itself, it has a strong interest in acting as a publisher for such games. EA has extensive experience in this field, as the company is one of the largest publishers in the game industry currently.
