MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Zynga yesterday posted its financial results and while the results were above expectations, they still show a remarkable $41m loss for the company as it continues its move away from the console and PC markets and towards mobile.
"We’re still managing the legacy Facebook and web business. We’re still trying to understand how that’s going to continue, even as it’s obviously in secular decline. It’s a nice contributor to our business, but overall we have to make sure we’re constantly monitoring how that drops," said Zynga CEO Frank Gibeau in an interview given to VentureBeat.
Zynga took a beating as the Facebook social games market declined, and have been refocusing towards mobile under their new CEO Frank Gibeau, and despite the recent losses, Zynga has some positivity in its future. Mobile friendly releases of their popular franchises and a new management team have buoyed the company this year, so much so that they’ve promised to buy $200m of stock back from investors in the next couple of years.
"I used to work on console and PC, and I’ll never go back. I love the mobile business. The audiences you can reach, the geographic distribution-you have huge markets in Asia and emerging markets," he said. "I love where our company is positioned. Our focus on mass-market social is far from its full potential. When I look at what Zynga’s capable of and how that vision is more relevant now than it’s ever been in the company’s history, I’m excited about where we’re at as a company and as a market."
It’s impossible to know how successfully the company will transition to mobile until the release of their mobile title Dawn of Titans, which has been in development at UK studio Natural Motion. It’s been in soft-launch for 20 months, but it’s releasing this holiday season.
