So, Zynga's business is officially worth less than nothing, according to Wall Street.
Quote:
Zynga stock is now trading at less than the value of its cash, securities and real estate holdings.
The 16% drop in Zynga's already battered stock price came after the company warned Thursday that its 2012 financial performance would be below previous projections and that it is taking a write-down of $85 million to $95 million on its acquisition of "Draw Something" game maker OMGPOP in March for $180 million.
That disclosure was quickly followed by a series of negative reports from analysts.
and no one was surprised and no one will be upset.
Really way to many of these little companies are getting purchased for ridiculous amounts of money. $180 million for OMGPOP, really... can anyone name 1 other game that they make of the top of their head thats not draw something?
The thing that really sent me over the edge is the new "promote" feature on facebook. Where you pay real money to have your status update "promoted" on your friends/likers facebook timelines... I'm working on making a full Google+ switch over, just trying to get my family on board...
I think FarmVille was actually a fun game at first, but the constant notifications and nagging screens ruined it. I realize that was the reason the game exploded in popularity so fast, but ultimately that's what also killed it. No one cares for yet another <name>Ville clone these days, they are all the same.
I have no problem with time based leveling though, even large MMOs do it like EVE Online.
The old zynga would have just copied draw something and called it drawville.
The other problem is that the old Zynga used to be the only kid on the block dealing shady in-app-purchases, spamming friends, cross-promoting games with in-game rewards, bribing for ratings, encouraging multi-level-marketing-style recruitment, etc.
These days, everyone's doing that shit.
The advantage they held due their unique scumminess is gone.
I seriously doubt EA will win. Its a nuisance case to siphon cash from Zynga while EA's legal division has spare cycles.
If it slightly looks like EA will win somewhere down the line, it is still in EAs best interest to settle out of court with Zynga so EA does not set precedent in the industry and get banged for their own clones.
I'm surprised that nobody mentioned that they have over a billion dollars in cash for this rainy day. Yes, there stock is shit...but they are far from done as they could just buy 10 more companies.
I lost thousands of dollars investing in Zynga and Facebook. But I made it all back and then some investing in Gamestop. Zynga and Facebook need to burn.
A little off tangent, but Draw Something was quite a fad there a while back. I even got into it, but as soon as Zynga started taking over control it went right out the window.
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Farmville Creator Zynga Circles the Drain
