Social gaming it is big money

Posted on January 19, 2010 by Marek

You might not know the name of Zynga, but it is very likely that you hear or play in Farmville and/or Mafia Wars. Zynga has created such a popular game and find an investor. And big money. To explain the phenomenon of social gaming in general just to mention two titles – Farmville and Mafia Wars. It is very much likely that a person with who we are talking playing with one (or two) from the game or at least heard that names.

For this game, however, stand really big money.

In November last year, the game industry giant Electronic Arts bought the company Playfish. The value of the transaction may amount to 400 million dollars, already now the EA paid 275 million in cash. Probably we’ll see quite quickly browser based versions of EA’s hits (some of the games to be asking for versions such as Sims).

To what extent is valued at a company that has created the most popular games on Facebook (Farmville more than 70 million active users and Mafia Wars, nearly 28 million)?

Two months ago, the company was worth a billion dollars. After the Russian investment fund Digital Sky Technologies (previously purchased shares in the Facebook for 200 million dollars) invested 180 million U.S. dollars in Zynga, the goodwill is estimated at from 1.5 to 3 billion dollars.

OK, look again at Farmville and MafiaWars and imagine the money.

PS. Zynga’s name comes from the name of the company’s founder … the dog. The dog attracted to Zinga and is a bulldog.