Zynga shifts focus to mobile games
Zynga has been experiencing a significant amount of turbulence in the social gaming space recently. The company made its fortune through Facebook with its vast portfolio of social games. Last year, however, Zynga suffered a proverbial fall from grace as consumers abandoned the company’s games and Facebook stopped showing exclusive favor to the developer. Zynga has adopted a new approach to gaming in an effort to reclaim its throne and has shifted focus to mobile games.
Social gaming takes a back seat
According to the company’s latest financial earnings report, Zynga saw revenues of $311 million in the fourth quarter of 2012. The company experienced a net loss of $48.6 million during the same period. Revenues have been stagnant for the company for several years, but in-game sales have dropped by 15% throughout 2012. For the company to reclaim its place in the game industry, it will have to make a big splash in the mobile games sector.
Zynga working to break into the mobile space
Zynga has already aligned itself with a mobile-centric focus. The company has a workforce of approximately 20 developers working exclusively on mobile games. The rest of the company is focusing on the business aspects of entering into the mobile space, such as marketing, developing better in-game monetization schemes, and working to build new mobile deployment platforms for its upcoming games. Though the company has adopted a very strong focus on mobile games, it is unlikely that Zynga will abandon its social games any time soon.
Social games not likely to be abandoned by the company
Though Zynga may have lost a great deal of favor with consumers over the past year, the company still boasts of more than 298 million monthly active users for its games. Most of these users come from Facebook, where the company’s most popular games are still featured. For its mobile games, Zynga will have to find a new publisher, as Facebook has shown wariness of supporting the company’s titles and the fact that the social network has a very limited presence in the mobile gaming sector.
Investors 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.
