Meanwhile, Joystiq.com's gaming industry luminaries have valued the new investment at "many, many millions," placing Zynga's net worth at "the largest number anyone's ever seen or written." Feel free to use those valuations as well, business guys.
Meanwhile, Joystiq.com's gaming industry luminaries have valued the new investment at "many, many millions," placing Zynga's net worth at "the largest number anyone's ever seen or written." Feel free to use those valuations as well, business guys.
Reader Comments (37)
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 8:24AM Ehker said
A happy three legged dog for a logo? That's messed up.
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 9:08AM RodrigoCard said
@Ehker He thinks the 4th thing there... is a penis.
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Posted: Feb 19th 2011 8:33AM satn said
Gaming value still $0
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 8:34AM SuperAngryMeatBirdBoy said
Internet Bubble 2.0 says hello world!
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 10:18AM Drakkenfyre said
"This is the greatest thing ever seen! We're going to make millions! We have no one else to go but up! Nothing can stop our growth!"
After:
"Wait, what happened? Why is no one buying our overpriced, worthless microtransactions? How can we lose money? We were worth millions! Why is no one trying to get advertising deals with us?"
(Spends the next 5 years recreating Farmville.)
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After:
"Wait, what happened? Why is no one buying our overpriced, worthless microtransactions? How can we lose money? We were worth millions! Why is no one trying to get advertising deals with us?"
(Spends the next 5 years recreating Farmville.)
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 10:47AM BananaBoat said
@Drakkenfyre - In the meantime though, some are going to make a lot of money. The thing about bubbles is that you have to know when to cash out.
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Posted: Feb 19th 2011 2:26PM Drakkenfyre said
Yes, and that's the thing. They think they are invincible, and can't fall. That's why you get screwed so hard.
That's what happened the first time.
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That's what happened the first time.
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 9:01AM DokiDokiBawanga said
never played Zynga game before..and something tells me i never will.
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 9:54AM MNC Dover said
Zynga came to my college to talk/recruit future artists. They seemed like an extremely fun place to work and unlike any normal game studio. 50 hour work weeks, but no crunch time. Free lunch/dinners, haircuts, massages, and Friday night parties. Every quarter they have a big party.
This is the mindset more companies need to put in place. Reward the hard work of your employees, but expect hard work. 50 hours is no joke, but compare that to normal weeks of 45 followed by several weeks of 70-80 hours of crunch and it becomes a no-brainer.
Sure, Zynga's games aren't for the typical "hardcore gamer", but I got to respect a company treating it's employee's right. They are also extremely successful at what they do and help turn non-gamers into gamers, which is always good for the industry.
That's just my $.02 though.
This is the mindset more companies need to put in place. Reward the hard work of your employees, but expect hard work. 50 hours is no joke, but compare that to normal weeks of 45 followed by several weeks of 70-80 hours of crunch and it becomes a no-brainer.
Sure, Zynga's games aren't for the typical "hardcore gamer", but I got to respect a company treating it's employee's right. They are also extremely successful at what they do and help turn non-gamers into gamers, which is always good for the industry.
That's just my $.02 though.
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 10:21AM Drakkenfyre said
Friviolous spending comes back and bites you in the ass.
3dfx splurged on their employees. They gave out free drinks, had tons of free time, if I remember correctly had big, free meals alot. As much as I love them, it didn't help them in the end when management made a few bad decisions, and left them finacially low, and the shareholders decided they wanted their money back more than anything, and voted to sell the company off.
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3dfx splurged on their employees. They gave out free drinks, had tons of free time, if I remember correctly had big, free meals alot. As much as I love them, it didn't help them in the end when management made a few bad decisions, and left them finacially low, and the shareholders decided they wanted their money back more than anything, and voted to sell the company off.
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 10:45AM satn said
@MNC Dover
If you fall for recruiters then theres this awesome government job recruiter at most schools that will pay for you to travel around the world, teach you new skills, give you free healthcare, free food, free housing and free clothing! They'll even give you free guns and free ammo!
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If you fall for recruiters then theres this awesome government job recruiter at most schools that will pay for you to travel around the world, teach you new skills, give you free healthcare, free food, free housing and free clothing! They'll even give you free guns and free ammo!
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 12:28PM MNC Dover said
@Mike: I'm not drinking the Zynga Kool-Aid, but having not worked for them I can't say whether or not they are corrupt. I'd really have to speak with a variety of their employees to get the full story.
@Drak: Totally agree. 3DFX made mistakes and it cost them, regardless of the way they treat the employees. The same could be said of any company. Look at Nintendo, if the Wii and DS hadn't have taken off they would have been screwed. They took a chance, got lucky, and the rest is history.
@Satn: I don't buy into any salesmen/recruiter stuff. I've worked retail and spewed company crap long enough to recognize it. When I was 18, a Army recruiter hassled me so I had to tell him that waking up at 5am and being tired and dirty all the time just wasn't my thing. My mom lol'd.
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@Drak: Totally agree. 3DFX made mistakes and it cost them, regardless of the way they treat the employees. The same could be said of any company. Look at Nintendo, if the Wii and DS hadn't have taken off they would have been screwed. They took a chance, got lucky, and the rest is history.
@Satn: I don't buy into any salesmen/recruiter stuff. I've worked retail and spewed company crap long enough to recognize it. When I was 18, a Army recruiter hassled me so I had to tell him that waking up at 5am and being tired and dirty all the time just wasn't my thing. My mom lol'd.
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 3:50PM ch3burashka said
@MNC Dover
Add some coke parties, and you're talking about Atari in the 80's.
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Add some coke parties, and you're talking about Atari in the 80's.
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 4:33PM Draugdraugr said
@Drakkenfyre
Awarding employees put 3dfx out of business? Are you sure it wasn't Glide being proprietary that was less and less supported by devs as OpenGL and DirectX caught up and offered similar APIs without having to deal with 3dfx exclusively? I think it is, they lost that war, just like betamax lost it's war and HD-DVD lost its war.
Blaming 3dfx for treating their employee's well as the point of failure, hilarious.
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Awarding employees put 3dfx out of business? Are you sure it wasn't Glide being proprietary that was less and less supported by devs as OpenGL and DirectX caught up and offered similar APIs without having to deal with 3dfx exclusively? I think it is, they lost that war, just like betamax lost it's war and HD-DVD lost its war.
Blaming 3dfx for treating their employee's well as the point of failure, hilarious.
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 5:32PM Draugdraugr said
@Hank Hill
I get mismanagement had to do with it, and it was mentioned, but Drak ken implied the main cause was employee compensation and reward, which was not the case. Thats why the statement you quote starts with "It didn't help" which would imply mismanagement was the icing on the cake, not the linchpin of failure.
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I get mismanagement had to do with it, and it was mentioned, but Drak ken implied the main cause was employee compensation and reward, which was not the case. Thats why the statement you quote starts with "It didn't help" which would imply mismanagement was the icing on the cake, not the linchpin of failure.
Posted: Feb 21st 2011 5:57PM Vesuvium said
@MNC Dover The 50 hour work week and less crunch time is becoming more and more commonplace in the indsutry. Zynga is far from unique.
Zynga is unique, however, in the sheer size and scale of their artistic bankruptcy and thinly-veiled manipulation of soccer moms to suck money out of them in their awful advertising/resource management sims that they call games.
I don't understand anyone who would put in the effort to break into the game industry - known for it's hard work but not high pay, the sort of industry you only go into if you love what you do - and then go work for Zynga. Just doesn't make sense.
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Zynga is unique, however, in the sheer size and scale of their artistic bankruptcy and thinly-veiled manipulation of soccer moms to suck money out of them in their awful advertising/resource management sims that they call games.
I don't understand anyone who would put in the effort to break into the game industry - known for it's hard work but not high pay, the sort of industry you only go into if you love what you do - and then go work for Zynga. Just doesn't make sense.
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 9:56AM Miketor said
I was going to try and make a Zynga-Jenga joke but it didn't work out. Any takers? Jynga?
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 10:38AM Colin said
@Miketor
Well, their business model is a precariously built tower that will certainly topple over if they keep trying to add more blocks, and continue ignoring the holes in their model that are left as they try to build higher profits and their business is inevitably going to crash down around their ears.
Not really a pun, but what a sweet analogy.
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Well, their business model is a precariously built tower that will certainly topple over if they keep trying to add more blocks, and continue ignoring the holes in their model that are left as they try to build higher profits and their business is inevitably going to crash down around their ears.
Not really a pun, but what a sweet analogy.
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 11:49AM Flapjackal said
Tell that to Google. Free gourmet meals. Free onsite haircuts, laundry. The list goes on.
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Posted: Feb 19th 2011 10:34AM Colin said
Coincidentally, I would value my Farmville farm at 10 billion dollars as well. It's those orchards, man. There's where the money is. Ditch the crops and you have minimal maintenance with max profits.
Er.. I mean... Farmville is lame and dumb and lame! Try a real game! Back to fragging nubs for me. Pew pew!
Er.. I mean... Farmville is lame and dumb and lame! Try a real game! Back to fragging nubs for me. Pew pew!
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 12:44PM bloodlinejake said
Hey guys guess what? There is a game you stole by the name of "harvest moon". I really hope you feel bad for what you have done Zynga.
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 12:57PM Gaddes said
Wow, I guess stealing game ideas DOES pay.
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 1:15PM EliminatorZigma said
In other news, its been found that Larry King is old.
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 3:28PM VeeDeeVee said
I don't like Zynga games. I also really don't understand that dog logo. It looks like a Staffs Terrier... a nightmare of a dog. It'll rip your f*****n face off
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 4:36PM KungFuChaosNinja said
@VeeDeeVee
Zynga's CEO admits that he was a scammer:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/96024-Zynga-CEO-Admits-to-Being-a-Scammer
Admits that Zynga's unofficial motto is "Be Evil":
http://www.destructoid.com/zynga-boss-allegedly-hates-innovation-loves-evil-183480.phtml
I'd say that their logo is spot on. They're a crap company that should be put 6 feet under.
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Zynga's CEO admits that he was a scammer:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/96024-Zynga-CEO-Admits-to-Being-a-Scammer
Admits that Zynga's unofficial motto is "Be Evil":
http://www.destructoid.com/zynga-boss-allegedly-hates-innovation-loves-evil-183480.phtml
I'd say that their logo is spot on. They're a crap company that should be put 6 feet under.
Posted: Feb 19th 2011 4:31PM KungFuChaosNinja said
Zynga makes trash games with a trash CEO. I can't wait until their 15 minutes of fame are up.
Posted: Feb 20th 2011 4:55PM Starcade said
Yep, internet bubble all over again. This is like Facebook. Just because someone gives a private company money, and the company declares it's for like 5% of the company (or whatever), that people start
extrapolating that the company must be worth "billions" if you take that amount and figure what the other 95% could be worth.
For what a company is really worth, you need to see their financials. For all we know Zynga may have made less than 500 million last year. Is a company that makes 500 million in revenue worth multiple billions? What kind of debt do they have? What IS their revenue? What kind of growth are they experiencing? Are they even profitable? or do they have to count on people giving them money so they can keep operating? How many employees do they have? How do they compare against other companies in their field? There's just so many questions that have to be addressed before you could even begin to calculate how much they're worth.
If there were truly worth 10 billion, then they would mean they're worth more than Electronic Arts, which I'm not buying. Zynga is very much a niche gaming company right now that's primarily in the social networking space. At best, they could be worth maybe 1 billion, riding on the coat tail of Facebook. Anything above that is wishful thinking in my opinion.
extrapolating that the company must be worth "billions" if you take that amount and figure what the other 95% could be worth.
For what a company is really worth, you need to see their financials. For all we know Zynga may have made less than 500 million last year. Is a company that makes 500 million in revenue worth multiple billions? What kind of debt do they have? What IS their revenue? What kind of growth are they experiencing? Are they even profitable? or do they have to count on people giving them money so they can keep operating? How many employees do they have? How do they compare against other companies in their field? There's just so many questions that have to be addressed before you could even begin to calculate how much they're worth.
If there were truly worth 10 billion, then they would mean they're worth more than Electronic Arts, which I'm not buying. Zynga is very much a niche gaming company right now that's primarily in the social networking space. At best, they could be worth maybe 1 billion, riding on the coat tail of Facebook. Anything above that is wishful thinking in my opinion.
Posted: Feb 21st 2011 2:50PM monkeyontherun4 said
@Starcade
agreed plus without facebook they would be nothing. i bet not too many people would go to a separate site just to play their 1 game rehashed 20 times.
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agreed plus without facebook they would be nothing. i bet not too many people would go to a separate site just to play their 1 game rehashed 20 times.
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