<story><title>Zynga&apos;s Profits Down by 95%</title><url>http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/223371/zyngas-profits-down-by-95/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>teej</author><text>Disclaimer: I was previously a Zynga employee and I am presently a holder of Zynga stock. I have no knowledge of Zynga&apos;s current internal state - the following is entirely speculation.&lt;p&gt;=================================&lt;p&gt;There are many forces at work here that need to be brought to light.&lt;p&gt;* Macro Trend #1 - Facebook&apos;s web traffic is in decline[1].  These users are shifting to mobile as their primary consumption channel for Facebook.  No facebook app developer has presence on the mobile app.&lt;p&gt;* Macro Trend #2 - Zynga&apos;s game launches are smaller than ever.  For many reasons, it&apos;s getting harder to launch a 5M+ DAU game.&lt;p&gt;Zynga is responding to these trends in several ways.&lt;p&gt;*  Leverage their warchest[2] to make acquisitions.  This lets them launch a higher volume of games and help them get a foothold in mobile.  Zynga has made a LOT of acquisitions this year[3].&lt;p&gt;* Further monetize their existing base.  They&apos;ve been pushing partner deals really hard recently, doing deals with Lady Gaga[4], Amex[5], and Capital One[6]&lt;p&gt;Zynga&apos;s games are more high quality than ever.  Gone are the days of &quot;fuck innovation&quot;, two of Zynga&apos;s most recent releases are the best they&apos;ve ever built.  The issue is that the market for FB games is in decline - the next big wave is mobile.  If Zynga can become a player by launching a hit or acquiring a large chunk of the space, they&apos;ll be doing better than ever.  But so far, Zynga&apos;s mobile releases have flopped.&lt;p&gt;TL;DR - Zynga&apos;s profits are a sign that they have doubled down on acquisitions to counter-balance a market shift from web to mobile.  Their future prospects lie in their ability to generate hits on the iPhone.&lt;p&gt;=====&lt;p&gt;[1] - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/06/12/facebook-sees-big-traffic-drops-in-us-and-canada-as-it-nears-700-million-users-worldwide/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/06/12/facebook-sees-big-t...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.insidemobileapps.com/2011/08/11/zynga-credit-1-billion-acquisitions/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.insidemobileapps.com/2011/08/11/zynga-credit-1-bi...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] - &lt;a href=&quot;http://mashable.com/2011/05/18/zynga-dna-games/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://mashable.com/2011/05/18/zynga-dna-games/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[4] - &lt;a href=&quot;http://mashable.com/2011/05/10/zynga-gaga-gagaville/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://mashable.com/2011/05/10/zynga-gaga-gagaville/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[5] - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zynga.com/about/article.php?a=20101130&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zynga.com/about/article.php?a=20101130&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[6] - &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.games.com/2011/09/19/farmville-cityville-pioneer-trail-capital-one/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://blog.games.com/2011/09/19/farmville-cityville-pioneer...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>maverhick</author><text>&amp;#62;TL;DR - Zynga&apos;s profits are a sign that they have doubled down on acquisitions to counter-balance a market shift from web to mobile.&lt;p&gt;That is not the right summary. Aquisitions are not expenses. They are spent from the &apos;capital/capital reserves&apos;. So the act of acquiring doesn&apos;t hurt the company&apos;s profitability directly. However if all the acquired companies are making losses, those losses will now become zynga&apos;s losses. So right now the cost of running zynga is huge and that is not too good a thing as compared to its revenues</text></comment>
<story><title>Zynga&apos;s Profits Down by 95%</title><url>http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/223371/zyngas-profits-down-by-95/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>teej</author><text>Disclaimer: I was previously a Zynga employee and I am presently a holder of Zynga stock. I have no knowledge of Zynga&apos;s current internal state - the following is entirely speculation.&lt;p&gt;=================================&lt;p&gt;There are many forces at work here that need to be brought to light.&lt;p&gt;* Macro Trend #1 - Facebook&apos;s web traffic is in decline[1].  These users are shifting to mobile as their primary consumption channel for Facebook.  No facebook app developer has presence on the mobile app.&lt;p&gt;* Macro Trend #2 - Zynga&apos;s game launches are smaller than ever.  For many reasons, it&apos;s getting harder to launch a 5M+ DAU game.&lt;p&gt;Zynga is responding to these trends in several ways.&lt;p&gt;*  Leverage their warchest[2] to make acquisitions.  This lets them launch a higher volume of games and help them get a foothold in mobile.  Zynga has made a LOT of acquisitions this year[3].&lt;p&gt;* Further monetize their existing base.  They&apos;ve been pushing partner deals really hard recently, doing deals with Lady Gaga[4], Amex[5], and Capital One[6]&lt;p&gt;Zynga&apos;s games are more high quality than ever.  Gone are the days of &quot;fuck innovation&quot;, two of Zynga&apos;s most recent releases are the best they&apos;ve ever built.  The issue is that the market for FB games is in decline - the next big wave is mobile.  If Zynga can become a player by launching a hit or acquiring a large chunk of the space, they&apos;ll be doing better than ever.  But so far, Zynga&apos;s mobile releases have flopped.&lt;p&gt;TL;DR - Zynga&apos;s profits are a sign that they have doubled down on acquisitions to counter-balance a market shift from web to mobile.  Their future prospects lie in their ability to generate hits on the iPhone.&lt;p&gt;=====&lt;p&gt;[1] - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/06/12/facebook-sees-big-traffic-drops-in-us-and-canada-as-it-nears-700-million-users-worldwide/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/06/12/facebook-sees-big-t...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.insidemobileapps.com/2011/08/11/zynga-credit-1-billion-acquisitions/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.insidemobileapps.com/2011/08/11/zynga-credit-1-bi...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] - &lt;a href=&quot;http://mashable.com/2011/05/18/zynga-dna-games/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://mashable.com/2011/05/18/zynga-dna-games/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[4] - &lt;a href=&quot;http://mashable.com/2011/05/10/zynga-gaga-gagaville/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://mashable.com/2011/05/10/zynga-gaga-gagaville/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[5] - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zynga.com/about/article.php?a=20101130&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zynga.com/about/article.php?a=20101130&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[6] - &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.games.com/2011/09/19/farmville-cityville-pioneer-trail-capital-one/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://blog.games.com/2011/09/19/farmville-cityville-pioneer...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>michaelochurch</author><text>You forgot to mention that Zynga is one of the major reasons &lt;i&gt;why&lt;/i&gt; Facebook is starting to decline in the U.S. People &lt;i&gt;hate&lt;/i&gt; Farmville and Mafia Wars and the associated spam.&lt;p&gt;That said, Words With Friends is an excellent implementation of Scrabble and it&apos;s actually social, not alienating like that Farmville garbage. It&apos;s quite well-polished. I respect the attention to detail.</text></comment>