Zynga’s Mark Pincus: I got kicked out of some of the best companies in America
(I’m live-blogging from Startup School, a daylong program from startup incubator YCombinator held at Berkeley today. Mark Pincus is the CEO of social gaming company Zynga . If these notes are a bit scattered, it’s because it’s paraphrased and Pincus is doing a stream-of-consciousness style talk.)
So Pincus starts his talk by outlining his pretty conventional career right out of college — he went into banking. Then to business school. Then he said he hadn’t really succeeded at any… Continue Reading
Zynga accuses Playdom of stealing company secrets, gets restraining order
An ongoing legal battle between social gaming rivals Zynga and Playdom got even uglier this week.
Zynga filed another suit claiming that Playdom had hired away four Zynga employees who had helped the company steal Zynga’s secrets, including a crucial document called the Zynga Playbook. The paperwork says:
The Zynga Playbook is literally the recipe book that contains Zynga’s “secret sauce,” and its contents would be invaluable to a competitor like Playdom. The Zynga Playbook constitutes a… Continue Reading
Zynga buys virtual home startup MyMiniLife
Popular social game maker Zynga announced today that it has acquired MyMiniLife, a social network centered around building and decorating virtual homes and other virtual environments.
Zynga says it’s looking to “integrate the MyMiniLife staff and technology” into its team. An early look at what the San Francisco-based social games company might do with the acquisition can be seen in FarmVille, a game released in June that lets users build farms and visit friends’ farms. The… Continue Reading
Could social gaming run afoul of gambling laws?
A variety of social network gaming applications are making lots of money from virtual goods. But could these services soon find themselves in trouble for allowing gambling — and get slapped with large fines or other punishment? The question matters like never before, and the answer’s not clear — although from my research, the risk seems relatively low.
Some companies, like Zynga, are rumored to be bringing in revenues of more than $100 million through games… Continue Reading
Facebook platform developers could see $500M in revenue this year
A growing number of game makers on Facebook are making money from virtual goods — from poker chips to virtual clothes that users can buy or earn while playing gaming applications with their friends on Facebook. The combined ecosystem of these game developers and other companies supplying services to them could generate half a billion dollars in revenue in 2009.
That’s significant, considering third-party applications on Facebook have been viewed as gimmicks making no significant revenue…. Continue Reading
Zynga becomes largest Facebook app developer (and it’s making big money)
Social gaming site Zynga has just become the largest application developer on Facebook, with more than 40 million monthly active users according to AllFacebook and AppData. This title changes hands quite often, but it’s perhaps more significant in this case because of how much money I hear Zynga is making through all these users.
Rumors have been circulating for a few months that it is on track to make up to $50 million in revenue this… Continue Reading
Scoreloop launches social game platform for iPhone
So many people are creating games for the iPhone that there’s cottage industry emerging to help them create their applications more easily.
The latest is Scoreloop, a Munich, Germany-based startup that has created a platform for developers to build social features into iPhone games. Today, the company is launching a software development kit that developers can use to add new multiplayer features.
I can see the logic. The chances of any developer producing a tremendously popular game… Continue Reading
Roundup: Blind advocates want audio Kindle, Google CEO speaks to newspapers, and more
Here’s the latest action:
Advocates for the blind protest loss of text-to-speech on Kindle — Amazon gave publishers the option to disable the feature after the Authors Guild complained it would cut into audio book sales. In response, a group advocating for the blind protested outside the Authors Guild office in Manhattan today.
Google CEO tells newspapers not to piss consumers off — Eric Schmidt gave the closing keynote at the Newspaper Association of America’s conference, where he said:… Continue Reading
Rumor: Zynga making more than $50 million on virtual goods
While Asian web companies are making millions if not billions of dollars on virtual goods, it hasn’t been clear how the business model is panning out in other parts of the world. So here’s another data point. Maybe.
We’re hearing a rumor similar to one a few months ago that San Francisco-based social gaming company Zynga is doing quite well for itself. Specifically, it’s making between $50 million and $60 million annually in revenue, mostly from… Continue Reading
iPhone game developers rejoice at Apple’s latest update plans
There were a lot of happy game developers among the 200 or so people who attended Thursday’s iGames Summit in San Francisco, which was devoted to iPhone games.
Speakers at the summit, including game developers such as Tapulous, ngmoco, Booyah, Demiforce, Zynga and Social Gaming Network, were excited about Apple’s announcement that its iPhone 3.0 update, coming this summer, would have a number of game-friendly features: a virtual goods platform, Bluetooth multiplayer, and peer-to-peer connectivity.
With more… Continue Reading
GamesBeat 09: More great speakers lined up
As the March 24 GamesBeat 2009 games conference draws near, we’re unveiling a new list of speakers. We’re proud to say that some of the biggest names in the gaming world are joining us for the program. Tickets are still available.
Chris Taylor (right), founder of Gas Powered Games, will share the stage with me as co-emcee of the event. We picked Taylor because he has been an advocate for creativity in games and because he’s one… Continue Reading
Virtual goods making money for Zynga, but $50 million a year?
updated
Social networking applications generally aren’t known for making tens of millions of dollars. But Zynga, a company that makes casual games for sites like Facebook and MySpace as well as Apple’s iPhone, is making somewhere between $30 million and $50 million, according to reports.
It’s one of the larger companies to take advantage of virtual goods — a revenue stream that’s looked increasingly promising over the last half year.
We’re hearing these numbers may be on the… Continue Reading
Playfish raises $17 million for Facebook games
Playfish, a social gaming company that has four of the top ten games on Facebook, has raised $17 million in funding.
The deal shows that the intersection of games and social networking remains a hot sector in spite of the weakening economy.
Playfish came out of nowhere to become a leader in one of the hottest categories of the video game industry. It was founded in October, 2007, and launched its first game in December, 2007.
To date,… Continue Reading
Virtual goods starting to pan out for Facebook game app developers, and not just the venture-funded ones
Like grizzled miners panning for gold on a river high in the Sierras, Facebook applications developers have been toiling away, trying to figure out how to make money from the millions of people who use their apps every day. Those developers who focus on games are starting to find gold — by which I mean revenue gained from doing things like selling virtual goods in exchange for real money.
Various estimates given to me by developers… Continue Reading
CasualCafe to launch Facebook games for casual players
CasualCafe has joined the ranks of game companies looking to make a fortune with games on Facebook. The Los Angeles company has launched its first two games, Spyde Solitaire and Burdaloo, for Facebook and is showing them off at Facebook’s F8 development conference.
Michael Scholz founded the company two years ago to create PC-based online games for the casual market. The games are based on Adobe’s Flash technology and run in a browser. As such, they… Continue Reading
Zynga launches Facebook game developer platform, which might prove valuable
Zynga, an emerging empire of third party gaming applications on Facebook, announced a new ad network for developers a couple of weeks ago — and crossed swords with rival gaming company Social Gaming Network (our coverage).
Tonight, Zynga is launching this ad network, with more details on how it can work for developers. The subtext here is: Zynga’s goal is to work better than SGN.
San Francisco-based Zynga has grown large and even profitable through developing Facebook… Continue Reading
Zynga and SGN launch ad networks for game developers on social networks
Want to play more games on Facebook? Well, some fast-moving start-ups are banking on it — and are enticing you to play new games by luring you with advertising. It’s the latest way entrepreneur are trying to make a buck on the tens of millions using Facebook and other social networks.
Zynga and the Social Gaming Network, competing creators of popular games in social networks, are behind two competing efforts. They’re placing ads within their own… Continue Reading
Roundup: Apple’s new ultra-portable notebook, Zynga launch, CNET’s poison pill, and more
Here’s the latest action:
1) Apple releases the Air, Twitter left gasping
2) Facebook-based gaming site Zynga launches
3) CNET defies Spark / Jana alliance with poison pill
4) Grayboxx rolls out local search nationally
5) Overlay.tv gets $4.5M for in-video ad links
6) Portfolio magazine cozies up to Open Social
7) Oversee draws $150M for domain auctions
A video primer on data portability
9) Notes on the upcoming 700mhz auctions
Apple releases the Air, Twitter left gasping — As usual, Steve Jobs used his keynote… Continue Reading