Tag: zynga mobile gaming

Zynga shares dropped while King reported quarterly results that were better than expected.

Unlike the popular “Candy Crush Saga” developer, King Digital Entertainment, which experienced better quarterly results than were expected, Zynga, the creator of the farming simulation social game, “Farmville”, is struggling to keep up with its competition, due to its failure to catch up with the recent mobile gaming growth during the latest quarter, reported the New York Post.

King’s Candy Crush games topped the mobile download lists for multiple months last year.

After extended trading, last Thursday, King Digital’s shares skyrocketed by as much as 20%, gaining 4.2%, to $14.74, by the close. Meanwhile, Zynga’s shares plummeted by as much as 11% in the after-market, following a 5.3% decrease, to $2.66, during the regular session.

Part of Zynga’s shares declined after it was revealed that the social game services provider is closing development offices in China. According to Zynga, this will save the company $7 million, annually, but will also cut 71 jobs.

In addition to reports of its mobile gaming success, King announced its purchase of Z2.

The creator behind the world-famous match-three puzzle video games, said that it will be acquiring Seattle startup, Z2, a game developer which has had success with its freemium turn-bases strategy video game, Battle Nations. King purchased the U.S. company for $45 million and as much as $105 million of additional payments for future performance targets.

Unlike King, Zynga has struggled to make the transition to mobile gaming with its popular games, like “Farmville”, which was initially designed for a social network platform, several years ago.

However, all might not be lost for the struggling company. Its “New Words With Friends”, a Scrabble-like game, has been gaining popularity. A fourth-quarter update revealed that the game had a 35% monthly audience increase.

For 2015, Zynga is aiming to make mobile gaming 75% of its overall business. The company said last Thursday that every new game it introduces this year, will be “mobile-first”. It is expected that the company will release anywhere from six to 10 mobile games, and among the new titles include “Empires & Aliens”, “Dawn of Titans”, and “Farmville: Harvest Swap”.

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.