Tag: social gaming

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.

Firm highlights potential of mobile gaming

Mediabrix, a mobile and social gaming advertising firm, has been heralding the potential of mobile games for some time. These games have become resoundingly popular among consumers around the world and, as such, have also become very attractive advertising platforms. The marketing potential of mobile gaming has yet to be fully actualized, but Medibrix has been showing the revenue generation capability of gaming advertisements and how effective in-game ads can actually be.

In-game ads reach $200 CPM

Mediabrix has reported that its in-game advertisements are generating $200 CPM across multiple platforms, 180 times greater than that produced by traditional advertisements. CPM denotes the rate that marketers will pay to have their ads hosted on a particular platform. The higher the CPM, the more valuable the platform is to marketers. According to data provided by Mediabrix, mobile games may be one of the most valuable marketing platforms there is.

Popularity of mobile games proves successful for advertisers

The value of mobile games is linked to their popularity among consumers. These games are both easy to obtain, as most of them are free, and easy to play. Because of their mobility, these games can be played anywhere and at any time. Moreover, consumers tend to jump from game to game relatively quickly, exposing themselves to a wide variety of games as well as the advertisements that these games host.

Fickleness of consumers may be bad for developers

Despite the apparent potential of mobile games, monetization of these games has been a difficult issue for many startups. New and independent development firms often fail in their monetization efforts because their mobile games are not able to find traction with consumers. Notably, the way consumers move from one game to another in quick succession has created a turbulent environment wherein developers have a difficult time holding the attention of a particular gamer long enough to generate any significant revenue.