Zynga - History

History

Mark Pincus founded Zynga in April 2007 under the name Presidio Media; the company name changed to Zynga in July 2007. Zynga was named after an American bulldog named Zinga once owned by Mark Pincus. The company uses an image of a bulldog as its logo. The early supporting founding team included Eric Schiermeyer, Michael Luxton, Justin Waldron, Kyle Stewart, Scott Dale, Steve Schoettler, and Andrew Trader.

Zynga's first game, Texas Hold'Em Poker, now known as Zynga Poker, was released on Facebook in July 2007.

The company received US$10 million, led by venture capital firm Union Square Ventures, in its first round of funding in January 2008. In July of the same year, Zynga received US$29 million in venture finance from several firms, led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in July 2008, at which time they appointed former Electronic Arts Chief Creative Officer Bing Gordon to the board. During the same period, they also bought YoVille, a large virtual world social network game.

Zynga became the #1 Facebook app developer with 40 million monthly active users (MAU) in April 2009. Soon after, the company opened its first external game studio in Baltimore, Zynga East, led by noted game maker and now Chief Game Designer Brian Reynolds. In June of the same year, Zynga launched FarmVille on Facebook and by August it was the first game on Facebook to reach 10 million daily active users. It had 20 million daily active users by October. On November 23, 2009, FarmVille.com went live as Zynga’s first stand-alone game.

In February 2010, Zynga acquired Serious Business, a social game company. Zynga also in February opened a studio in Los Angeles, California as well as Zynga India in Bangalore, the company’s first office outside the United States.

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington reported on May 7, 2010, that Zynga was threatening to leave Facebook altogether in the wake of Facebook's requiring exclusive use of Facebook Credits for monetization in applications. On May 18, 2010, Facebook and Zynga entered into a five-year relationship to expand the use of Facebook Credits in Zynga's games.

In May 2010, Zynga acquired XPD Media. Weeks later on June 3, 2010, Zynga acquired Challenge Games, which would later be known as Zynga Austin. On June 9, 2010 Zynga launched FrontierVille developed at its Zynga East studio in Baltimore.

Zynga acquired Conduit Labs in August 17, 2010, renaming it Zynga Boston. The acquisition of Dextrose, now Zynga Germany, marked the company's first expansion into Europe.

Bonfire Studios was acquired by Zynga on October 5, 2010. It was renamed Zynga Dallas. The acquisition brought Zynga's workforce to more than 1300 employees worldwide. Months later, on December 2, 2010, Zynga announced it acquired the Texas-based mobile game developer Newtoy, Inc., developers of Words with Friends and Chess with Friends, and renamed the studio to Zynga With Friends.

In December 2010, Zynga's game CityVille surpassed FarmVille as its most popular game with over 61 million monthly active users and a base of over 16 million daily active users.

Zynga acquired the New York-based game developer Area/Code, now renamed Zynga New York in January 2011. Soon after, in March 2011, Zynga announced the acquisition of the team from Boston-based game developer, Floodgate Entertainment. It was Zynga's tenth acquisition in ten months. In April 2011, Zynga announced the acquisition of MarketZero, an online poker tracker company.

In May 2011, the company launched its most complicated game to date—Empires and Allies.

Zynga filed with the SEC to raise up to $1 billion in an initial public offering on July 1, 2011. At the time, the company had 2,000 employees. Zynga began trading on NASDAQ on December 16, 2011.

On January 8, 2012, Zynga added a new category to its social gaming with a new puzzle game, Hidden Chronicles.

February 15, 2012, saw the launch of Zynga Slingo, a version of the popular slots/bingo combination games popular online and in casinos.

On March 21, 2012, Zynga announced they purchased the game company OMGPOP for $180 million, therein acquiring the game Draw Something. A noticeable drop in popularity was noted following the acquisition, as daily active users dropped from 15 million to 10 million in the first month post-acquisition. In June 2012, CBS was the winner of a bidding war for the pilot of a TV Gameshow based on Draw Something.

On June 4, 2012, Zynga announced the purchase of video game maker Buzz Monkey, along with their entire 50 person, Oregon based office, which will now turn into Zynga's 18th satellite office. Buzz Monkey is known for working on successful video games such as Tomb Raider and Tony Hawk, as well as Zynga's Frontierville.

On June 26, 2012, during the annual Zynga Unleashed conference, Zynga announced the Zynga With Friends network. The goal is to connect players of various Zynga game titles across multiple platforms including Facebook, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Zynga.com. Players create profiles to show off their activity, message friends, discover which games friends are playing, and meet new people based on shared gaming interests.

During the 2012 Unleashed conference, Zynga also announced the Zynga API, which will help developers build social games. The company announced that three new partners were developing games for Zynga.com including 50 Cubes, Majesco Entertainment and Portalarium and unveiled the Zynga Partners for Mobile program to help increase Zynga’s presence on mobile devices. Zynga Partners for Mobile include Atari (Super Bunny Breakout), Crash Lab (Twist Pilot), Fat Pebble (Clay Jam), Phosphor Games Studio (Horn), Sava Transmedia (Rubber Tacos), and Digital Legends Entertainment (The Respawnables).

On October 14, 2012, Zynga filed a lawsuit against a former general manager for allegedly misappropriating trade secrets. The suit claims the ex-employee copied important confidential information from his computer before leaving Zynga to work for a rival social games maker.

On November 9, 2012, Zynga announced it had acquired game company November Software for an undisclosed amount. Zynga revealed that the acquisition actually happened back in the spring and that it will be working on bringing console gaming experiences to mobile. The rumored title of the game is Battlestone.

On February 5, 2013, Mark Pincus, former CEO and Founder, announced that "the biggest highlight of the quarter was seeing our team deliver a successful sequel in FarmVille2, a next generation social game that offers cutting edge 3-D experiences loved by millions of FarmVille fans,” In 2013, Zynga will bring this new class of social games to mobile phones and tablets and build a network that offers an easier, better way for people to play together.

In 2013, Zynga began shutting down some of its games (see below under Games). Fans of the games were given little notice; for example, players of Dream PetHouse were given only six weeks notice that their games would end.

On June 3, 2013, Zynga announced that the company would be laying off 520 employees - roughly 18 percent of its workforce - and close offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas.

On July 1st, 2013, Zynga confirmed that it had hired Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment President Don Mattrick as its new CEO. Zynga's press release announced that former CEO, Mark Pincus, would continue as Zynga’s chairman and chief product officer. According to Zynga's 8-K regulatory filing, Mattrick would receive about $50 million in cash and stock compensation over several years.