Rumor: Google Invests $100 Million In Zynga For Google Games
According to the highly respected , Google has very quietly invested into Zynga Game Network Inc, the social gaming monster best known for apps such as FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and FrontierVille. The rumored amount is said to be somewhere between $100-$200 million dollars.
The investment made by Google is supposedly part of a strategic deal that will put Zynga games at the cornerstone of the upcoming Google Games release. Google has been trying hard to succeed with the social crowd, and by enabling players to access their favorite social games using their Google login, will further cement the foundation they have started to build.
According to TechCrunch sources, Zynga’s revenue for the first half of 2010 will be a staggering $350 million, $175 million of that is profit. They are projecting $1 billion in revenue for 2011. Considering their monthly average user count has been dropping over the past few months, it has me wondering what additional games and/or features we will be seeing on the horizon!
Should Zynga games indeed become a fixture of Google Games, we are sure to see Google Checkout added as an in-game payment option. This is sure to have PayPal grumbling, as Zynga is rumored to be PayPal’s largest single customer. I personally think eBay is their largest, but considering PayPal is owned by eBay, they don’t seem to be considering them a “customer”.
I will continue to update this as more details on the release of Google Games are announced!
Huh — congrats to Zynga. Now if only they could make games that are actually really great games!!!
The problem with these formulaic “upgrade, tweak, upgrade” leaderboard games is eventually everyone gets sick of them.
Why? B/c they’re not really games. They’re more like mind-numbing things to do while you’re at work.
Games are actually fun activities involving strategy, a competitiveness, are generally fun, and are replayed frequently. Also, with many games (altho not all), you don’t get worked over for $$$ by the game company (although that is changing with the new paradigm of ever-expandable boardgames — thank you Magic: the Gathering, aka gamer crack).
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