Mark Pincus On Zynga’s Facebook Addiction: “We’ve Never Thought Of It In Terms Of Attachment (Or Detachment)”

Zynga CEO Mark Pincus took the stage today at D10, and of course because Facebook is all people can talk about after its IPO two weeks ago, he got asked and asked and asked again about Zynga’s “attachment to Facebook.”
“Zynga is very tied to Facebook,” Kara Swisher brought up immediately, describing the two stocks as “tethered together.” Indeed, Zynga makes up 15% of Facebook’s revenue, and Facebook makes up most of Zynga’s.
“They’re really important not just to us.” Pincus said, “Facebook is providing a new part of [the ecosystem's] stack, there is now a social stack and an app stack.” Pincus went on to describe the social graph as “magical” but expressed concern at Facebook’s pace of innovation on mobile, “On the web they’ve been really important with regards to distribution.”
Pincus called out for more mobile discovery options, and referred to Android and iOS as platforms that held just as much importance for the future of Zynga. “Discovery and the return path to apps still needs innovation on mobile,” he emphasized.
In order to address the lack of a unified place to discover apps of mobile, Pincus brought up that Zynga had aspirations to become this platform, aiding third parties in the distribution of social games, an ambition that Swisher compared to that of Xbox Live. But it’s sort of tough to become a platform while you’re still addicted to another.
Because Pincus didn’t clearly address how its reliance on Facebook for its primary revenue was being dealt with strategically inside Zynga, The Verge’s Josh Topolsky asked the CEO again about Facebook during Q&A, “How are you going to get detached from Facebook?” Topolsky said, “What is your actual strategy for being a business on your own?”
“We’ve never thought in terms of attachment or detachment,” Pincus responded, “We have a 90 to 10m rule, which means that if a platform can bring us 10m DAUs in 90 days then we invest at scale. Facebook met that rule and Android and iOS have the potential, he said.
“I think of it like the evolution of TV.” Pincus explained. “People wanted to watch TV but our desire to watch TV wasn’t created by the networks, it was a relationship between us and content. People have a latent interest in playing independent of the platform and we are willing go anywhere.”

11:13 by Robert dawne · 0

Would You Watch An Angry Birds Web Series?

Angry Birds is one of the world’s favorite mobile games with their most recent release, Angry Birds Space, garnering a whopping 10 million downloads in less than three days.  People wear Angry Birds costumes, dream of Angry Birds theme parks, eat Angry Birds pizzas, and even shop in Angry Birds stores.  Soon, fans will be able to watch an Angry Birds web series as well.

Rovio has announced that they will be launching a 52-episode, weekly Angry Birds web series this fall.  Nick Dorra, head of animation at Rovio, said at the MIPTV conference in Cannes, “Angry Birds is not just about the gameplay, and will be in the future less and less about the slingshot, actually, and more and more about the characters.”  Dorra says, “We’re going to roll it out on all possible devices.  We’re looking at building a video app for that, and we’re also looking at partnerships and so on… We want to be on all screens.”
Though still primarily known for their mobile game, Angry Birds is far from new to the online video scene.  The Rovio Entertainment YouTube channel has over 452 million views thanks to popular Angry Birds videos.  Some of the most popular Angry Birds videos include a sweet cinematic trailer, a short about Mighty Eagle, and a holiday video called ‘Season’s Greedings!’
The tens of millions of views on these videos indicate that the Angry Birds series, when it launches this fall, will be a huge success.  Will you watch?  Or will you be too busy with slingshots on your mobile?

10:43 by Robert dawne · 0

ContraVille? Konami Signs Up to Make Games for Zynga.com

There are no allegiances in gaming anymore.  There was a time when developing games for the Nintendo Entertainment System meant that you were strongly pressured not to make games for other consoles.  For me, I was on the Nintendo ship until they lost Square and Final Fantasy VII was produced for the Sony Playstation.  Well, these days platform creators like Nintendo and Sony have new competition in the form of Zynga and OnLive, and Zynga just recently announced that Konami, one of the largest console game makers in the world, will be producing games for their new Zynga.com platform.
The news was reported by Rob Dyer, the head of publishing at Zynga who’s heading up the Zynga.com platform, at GDC in San Francisco on Thursday.  In addition to Konami, Zynga has recruited Playdemic and Rebellion as well, and explained a few details of the payment process.  When using Facebook credits as most of the games use right now, these publishers will be getting 70% of the 70% of revenue that Zynga gets, putting publishers at receiving 49% of revenue from a sale on Zynga.com.
That said, games that appear on Zynga.com will take advantage of massive cross-advertising opportunities and will join one the fastest growing social gaming company on the web.  It may be a great long term strategy to join the network and make your games known to gamers as Zynga.com continues to expand and provide new offerings.  Inside Social Games points out that “Konami and Rebellion also make for strange bedfellows as both developers have little to no experience in social games.”  This is true of Zynga’s strategy at this point, and speaks to the fact that Zynga must be aggressively courting small game publishers right now to get them to join the network — it would be quite difficult to persuade even mid-size game publishers to join and give 30% of their revenue to Zynga.
We’ll see how things progress for Zynga.com, and whether they begin to mould themselves into their own social network in the future.  Are they attempting to go the route of something like OMGPOP?

07:44 by Robert dawne · 0

Zynga Moves Beyond Facebook to Zynga.com

Zynga, the casual gaming company that accounted for 12 percent of Facebook’s revenue in 2011, is starting its own gaming site at Zynga.com.

The first games to make the transition will be “CastleVille,” “Words With Friends,” “CityVille,” “Hidden Chronicles,” and “Zynga Poker” in early March.
On the new platform, gamers will be able to connect with other players outside their networks on Facebook, called “zFriends.” Other social features include real-time chat, and the ability to post achievements, or to send gifts and messages without leaving the game. The interface shows a running tally of the number of players currently online, as well as a stream of who’s playing what on the right side of the screen. No one on Facebook is particularly impressed by their friends’ casual gaming scores, so a separate environment where everyone who is there is there to play is Zynga’s best idea yet.
But this doesn’t mean that the company is severing its ties with Facebook. According to VentureBeat, Zynga gets 90 percent of its revenue from the social network by recruiting new players through Facebook Connect and collecting payments through Facebook Credits. The company will continue to use Facebook Credits as its virtual goods payment system on the new platform, even though Credits takes a 30 percent cut of the profits.
Third-party developers will also be able to use Zynga’s platforms to publish games.  It’s possible that Zynga could take an additional cut, but Zynga COO John Schappert told TechCrunch that terms with these developers were negotiated and private.
“We’ve been a web/game company delivering content to our players and developing our own internal infrastructure and technology. And now we’re transforming into a gaming and platform company,” Schappert told VentureBeat. “We’ve listened to our players, to what they want from social gaming. They want a place where they can play together, they want a place that curates and delivers the best new social games for them, where they’ll always have a friend to play with.”

09:52 by Robert dawne · 0

Zynga’s Earnings: Social Gaming Revenue by the Numbers [INFOGRAPHIC]

Social gaming juggernaut Zynga released its 2011 Q4 earnings on Tuesday — its first public report since hitting NASDAQ in December.
The numbers were promising for investors, but revealed that scaling might pose challenges for longterm profitability. Our friends at Statista have taken a deeper look at the report and rendered the graphs below to show the relationship between Zynga’s massive user base, wavering growth patterns, and how much users are paying for content.

Have you purchased stock in Zynga? Do you expect it to be a longterm win for your portfolio? Let us know what you think of the report in the comments below.

13:29 by Robert dawne · 0

‘Angry Birds Space’ Arrives in a Month

Apparently a year is too long to go without a new version of the game arriving, so Rovio’s put up a teaser page letting us know about the coming launch of Angry Birds Space, briefly mentioned in the latest Top 10 Tech This Week.
It’s been a while now since we’ve seen a full-on new edition of Angry Birds. Sure, Rovio regularly release new episodes for its Angry Birds games, full of new levels and the occasional new bird, but ignoring the Symbian-only Angry Birds Magic with its NFC tricks, the last we got was the promotional movie tie-in of Angry Birds Rio last March.
Details on the game are sparse, but Rovio has disclosed that it will be arriving on March 22. For some reason, the company’s recruited NASA and National Geographic as partners in the app’s launch, but it’s unclear how they could fit in besides just providing background imagery for the game.
How will Space differ from existing Angry Birds titles? The obvious change would be letting level designers mess around with the strength of gravity. There will also supposedly be a “lightspeed destruction” mode, though it’s unclear just what that will entail. Rovio will likely have more details to share, as well as some in-game footage, as we approach the launch date.

12:43 by Robert dawne · 0

Zynga Slingo Combines Past and Present in New Social Game [PICS]

Take a spin on Facebook with Zynga’s new Slingo game — that’s slots and bingo combined.
On Wednesday, social game creator Zynga launched Slingo for Facebook. If you’ve been a fan of online games for a long time, you might have played Slingo in the past — the game started on America Online 15 years ago.
“Anybody who’s played Slingo in the past will feel right at home,” says Rich Sawel, product manager for Zynga Slingo.
Zynga Slingo combines the classic features of Slingo with the glitz and pizzazz of Zynga games.
Players click “spin” and match numbers to fill a bingo card. They can bump up their score by earning balls and coins. Get a “bingo” by matching five numbers vertically, horizontally or diagonally. Players can wager their points — the whole loot or just a percentage — and flip the devil v. cherub coin to potentially win big or lose it all.
There are five “worlds” in which to play Slingo and lots of visual appeal — confetti, flashes, bright colors, a moving joker in the bottom right corner. Zynga kept the cherub and devil images from the original version.
And just like other social games, you can play for a bit at a time then walk away and pick up the game later on. Unless, of course you’re addicted.
“It’s like recess for adults,” Sawel said.
Slingo was one of the first free casual games on the market 15 years ago, said Slingo Inc. CEO Rich Roberts. The game has been played by more than 55 million people over the years.
“Zynga has the experience on social games and this certainly fits what Zynga does,” Roberts said. “We think that with this relationship the game will appeal to user.”
The game is available in 14 languages, including: English, Spanish, French, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Turkish, Danish, German, Swedish and Norwegian.
Click here to play.
Check out this gallery to see what the game looks like:

15:00 by Robert dawne · 0

Games Bring in the Most Revenue for Sohu in the 4th Quarter

Despite government crackdowns on social media users, social games continue to grow in China.  Sohu’s (NASDAQ: SOHU) fourth quarter financial results are in, and the largest share of the company’s revenue came from games, which brought in $123 million and showed an increase of 34 percent year-over-year and 6 percent quarter-over-quarter.
Sohu.com, Inc. is the parent company of the Chinese language online media destination www.sohu.com; the interactive search engine www.sogou.com; the games information portal www.17173.com; the real estate website www.focus.cn; the online alumni website www.chinaren.com; the wireless value-added services provider www.goodfeel.com.cn; the online mapping service provider www.go2map.com; and the developer and operator of online games at www.changyou.com/en/.
The company’s business model is based on brand advertising, sponsored search services, online games, and wireless value-added services like downloadable ringtones. Overall revenues are at an all-time high of $246 million, representing a 42 percent increase over the fourth quarter last year.
In May 2011 Sohu’s subsidiary Changyou bought the majority stake in the online gaming company Shenzhen 7Road Technology Co. for $32.76 million. Changyou’s games include the martial arts game “Tian Long Ba Bu” and a new massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) called “Duke of Mount Deer” for hard-core gamers. In December, Sohu sold its 17173 website to Changyou for $162.5 million and will provide tech support and advertising for around $30 million.
Said Dr. Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO of Sohu.com Inc., “For online game business, in 2011 Changyou achieved healthy growth in its MMO game portfolio and diversified into other fast growing areas such as Web-based games. In 2012, with our leading game information portal 17173.com under its leadership, Changyou will jumpstart a platform-based initiative.”
Next quarter, revenue for 17173 is expected to be between  $7 million and $8 million – a $4 million to $5 million drop from last quarter. Co-president and CFO Carol Yu explained that the first quarter of the year is always a slow season for online gaming advertising, and that new game launches have been affected by the early arrival of the Chinese New Year holiday.
NASDAQ.com has a good analysis of Sohu’s net income, which dropped despite the increase in revenue. To read the transcript of the earnings call, click here.
Image by sevenke via Shutterstock.

12:44 by Robert dawne · 0

Angry Birds on Facebook Launching Your Way on Valentines Day

What could be more romantic than playing Angry Birds on Facebook with your sweetheart or with a social network of relative strangers? The highly anticipated Facebook version of Angry Birds will officially be landing in a browser near you on Feb. 14, Valentines Day.
Rovio, the studio behind the game, has put out a trailer (above) and dropped lots of little hints that the Angry Birds on Facebook won’t be exactly like its mobile counterparts. Rovio CEO Mikael Hed said the game will have completely new aspects and a more collaborative feel. It’ll also focus more heavily on the hapless pigs.
From the trailer above it looks like the same gameplay that made Angry Birds a viral (and financial) sensation are still the focus: Flinging birds across a screen to knock out pigs and build high scores. This being Facebook, expect social posts and friend challenges to play a role, though Rovio so far has stayed mum on what those “collaborative” features will be.
It may seem like a bad idea to launch a game on Valentine’s Day, but given Angry Birds‘ success, Rovio can pretty much do what it wants. The game — and its spin-offs — have been downloaded more than 500 million times, prompting Rovio CMO Peter Vesterbacka to say the company was worth more than $1.2 billion.
Angry Birds games have been developed for nearly every major mobile platform or device but this is the first time the game will be coming to a browser on the social network. It’s a move designed to get the game into more hands and more news feeds, but at some point will we just be Angry Bird-ed out?

14:41 by Robert dawne · 0