| Martain Chandler |
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Cynics of every stripe are proven correct today no matter how you look at it.
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| Daniel Boy |
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Isn't Zynga's market cap now lower than EA's because of today's 5% dip?
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| Marc Schaerer |
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Lets wait a while. Their major decline in player base and the fact that the average player is finally realizing that they were tricked to be stupid living macro programs will sooner or later turn around and send their cap to a freefall flight.
Zynga might have a lot around at the time and is well known, but its empire is all built around more or less the same mechanic so they can't keep users that are pissed about one of their games with alternative games and their brainset seems to be completely incapable to think outside the "bought timeslice" style of game at all, creating new boring 'monkey click a button and wait for interaction time to fill up' games. I would love to see them dip much worse to send out a signal to the industry that this style of game is inacceptable, after EA trashed the sims game that had so much potential until someone looked at zyngas morronic designs :( |
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| Harry Fields |
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Doesn't really matter. Pincus just made a boatload of money today and that's what this is all really about.
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| Matthew Cooper |
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I too am jealous of Pincus' success.
Am I doing this right? |
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| Florian Putz |
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What could have possibly gone wrong? Zynga to start with, is not a game development company. Mark Pincus is not a game developer, and he never will be. The only reason why he started this company, was to make boatloads of money and sell it, not to make games. Who would do longterm investments in a company that is not dedicated to their products? Zynga doesn't have a single original game. All they have is "games" that they simply cloned. Ok, lots of people do that, but, if sillicon valley wasn't almost as incestuous as hollywood, zynga would have already perished a long time ago - together with the dozens of other unnoticed flash game developer that did not even get close to facebooks doors. Maybe its also zynga's doubtable business model that relies mostly on tricking people into ringtone and other subscriptions through third party scammers. I dnt know what it is, but I know zynga is for sure not the biggest publisher today, but the biggest bubble in computer game history. Any sane investor should think twice before getting involved into of zynga's business. Maybe they started thinking, maybe thats what happend yesterday...
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| Bruno Xavier |
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This is music to my ears. Die zynga, die.
Still they have too much money to stay around for a long lonnnng time -.- |
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| Michael Joseph |
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What Zynga needs is a way to lock in it's users. It's just too easy for users to walk away from a facebook game. They need some gamification equivalent to frequent flier miles or something. LOL. Seriously, if they can find some way to do that (maybe files some related patents along the way), I think investors will feel their stock is significantly less volatile. But it has to be legit and not some veiled ponzi scheme. But even so, there's always the danger that users will feel entrapped somehow or that they're not getting any/enough real value from the arrangement.
They can also follow the AOL model and use their stock to purchase more traditional game companies or start branching out and creating more traditional games on their own. /devil's advocate p.s. If I was in charge, I would've changed the name from Zynga to something that sounds less like an undesirable microbe or fungus years ago. EDIT: As an aside, Gamasutra is one of the most popular game industry insider talkback sites. there's been a fair bit of negativity towards Zynga here. i wonder if these talkbacks (specifically the ones leading up to the IPO) influenced wallstreet/investors at all re: zynga? wishful thinking? EDIT 2: Marcus Pincus video interview from Dec 10th of last year. http://www.bloomberg.com/video/82779674/ |
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| Alternate Procellous |
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@Michael: I will agree that there's been a fair bit of negativity on Gamasutra lately, but in general. I don't quite understand it myself, but it is to the point that I won't post my own opinions under my real name. I've noticed a considerable lack of objectivity and rational thought from a fair number of people posting comments here. I know we're all very passionate about what we do, and sometimes it gets the better of us, but some of the comments lately have made me question whether or not I should bother contributing to the discussion.
I'm not sure anything went wrong with this IPO at all. Zynga put up 100 million shares at $10. What happened was the result of deliberate strategy. There are at least two things going on here: price skimming (or something like it) and anchoring. I'd give an explanation, but I think it'd be a bit tedious and we have Wikipedia for that. The point is, by pricing at $10 a share, Zynga got exactly what they wanted: $1 billion in additional capital. If they had priced at $8 a share, they might have lost out on $200 million. Once those 100 million shares are sold by Zynga, they have what they want. Any exchange in shares after that point happens between individual investors and doesn't involve Zynga at all, so any gain or loss realized in those transactions has no direct impact on Zynga's balance sheet. They still have $1 billion more than they had prior to the IPO and they only sold 14% of the company! |
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| Alex Covic |
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reminding some people: in the end, the markets reflect the expectation for 'future' earnings and possibilities - not the past. True, some market mechanisms apply. And those corporate investors don't really give a darn, if you think these are 'real' games or not. That's a different debate.
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| Ramon Carroll |
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Learn this: At the end of the day, the consumer is the one running the show, not you. Forget this simple point, and you fail.
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| Daniel Martinez |
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Before we continue the arguments of what a real game is or should be, whether the company is profitable or not is all that matters to investors. If it doesn't make dollars it doesn't make sense. Right now the company is profitable, the article screams speculation but once the noise dies down, if the company is still profitable, the investors will eventally catch on. So don't count all your eggs just yet...
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| Gerald Belman |
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If a company issues stock during their growth - that is a good sign - they need money to continue growing and competing.
If a company issues stock at their peak - that is a bad sign - all the money has been made - now they are just trying to cash out. If a company issues stock during their decline - that is a really bad sign - they are trying to stave off bankruptcy - this usually harms confidence so much that they go into bankruptcy anyways. There is a price where Zynga's stock is going to be worth it to buy it - my point is not that you should NEVER buy Zynga stock. But people who are basing valuations on a expectation of growth are delusional. The markets are NOT efficient. Will Zynga continue growing or has it reached it's peak? That is the question. |
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| Nicholas Lovell |
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My gut instinct is that Zynga went public about 9 months too late. I wouldn't have invested in the stock.
And I'm a believer in all this free-to-play, social games future malarkey. |
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