back to article Shocked Zynga investors get a penny per share

Zynga has shocked analysts by somehow coming up with a cent in earnings for each one of its shares. The online gaming firm, which is struggling to retain its users, was expected to come up with a loss of three cents per share for investors, but managed to grab them a penny instead. That did not make the rest of its financial …

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  1. Code Monkey
    Thumb Up

    Zynga's stable of timewasters and their "post some shite as status" features were a huge factor in driving me off New Facebook. Even more than the morons, pictures of offspring, copy/pasted mumbo-jumbo, &c.

    I guess what I'm saying is I'm grateful to them.

    1. Lee Dowling Silver badge

      When I first signed up to Facebook, Zygna was complete spam. All my friends were playing FarmVille and whatever else and for the most part I ended up just blocking the apps.

      Hilariously, someone still managed to "send" me something to do with Farmville. This was still pre-paying for things on Facebook, so I logged in, took one look at the actual numbers on the game and literally - within a week or so of very casual play - had more "virtual money" in the game than those people who had been spamming me about Farmville for months and playing it every day, tending their crops for hours on end.

      I "spent it" all on crap, spammed all those other friends with the crap I sent them, then blocked every Zygna app that appeared from being on my Facebook.

      Since then, my Facebook was so locked down that I saw literally nothing but my friends posts and the adverts on the right. Just lately, I've been getting random spam again but, from what I can see, people just aren't playing the games any more. It was a novelty to have a game where you could "ask your friends for help" or whatever, and send each other virtual cushions or whatever it was, but it wore off very quickly. The games themselves really had no balance or strategy to them. Literally within days of just creating a field of the most profitable crop, harvesting, and keeping selling it off, I was able to "afford" virtual items that my friends who'd played for months couldn't.

      So if the games were rubbish, weren't balanced, and have now become adverts for spending real money, and people have stopped playing games on Facebook anyway, I don't see why Zygna is worth anything at all.

      Don't get me wrong, I abhorred the Free-To-Play culture of gaming for years but just lately I got into things like TF2 and it's actually quite fun to play - the base game was always pretty good anyway, even back in the TF days - but the added value of: get a "rare" item, sell it off, rinse and repeat, etc. does make it more "engaging". It's not something I'd put money into, generally speaking, but I did pay for a few things on TF2 basically because I think Valve do a wonderful job and I bought their "map pack" that pay the community map-makers a bit too (probably a pittance, but it's something). But the game has to be fun and playable, if you're making a game, and even more so if you're making one where you expect people to pay. TF2 is actually good at getting out of your way and not requiring you, or spamming you, to pay money for things. I felt my payment was more like one of those "pay what you think it's worth" kind of indie deals, in terms of TF2.

      I don't see Zygna making games good enough to do the same. And even Facebook itself is starting to die off, just waiting to be replaced by the next fad. I don't think Zygna is worth anything at the moment, and in the future it's only going to get worse. I'm just shocked that they actually make any profit at all.

      1. Mike Flugennock
        Thumb Up

        uhhhhmmm... yeah. What HE said...

        I've had a Facebook account for maybe two or three years, and from day one it's been locked down tighter than a prima-donna's corset -- no games, no apps, friends only, and spend maybe five or ten minutes at a time, tops, just long enough to upload my latest cartoon and blog post link, maybe flip through the feed real quick to see if there's anything really interesting, and then bail. I don't even look at it every day; sometimes I'll go for a week or so at a stretch without even bothering, and even then I get on only after reading an article in The Reg about FB jerking around peoples' privacy settings again.

      2. csumpi
        Mushroom

        ...all my friends were playing FarmVille...

        you meant:

        ...all my "friends" were playing FarmVille...

        right?

  2. DrXym

    They should be fed their own dogfood

    Don't give them dividends in USD. Give them Zynga points, good for one wheelbarrow, Hawaiian shirt, Miso soup recipe or some other virtual item in one of their shitty skinner box "games". Let the investors see what they're investing in.

    1. JetSetJim

      Re: They should be fed their own dogfood

      They're not giving any dividends, this is non-GAAP earnings

    2. GeezaGaz
      Thumb Up

      Re: They should be fed their own dogfood

      that is fucking priceless!!!

    3. Mike Flugennock
      Pint

      Re: They should be fed their own dogfood

      Brilliant, man, just friggin'... BRILLIANT -- so brilliant that nobody would dare try it.

  3. mike2R

    What I've learnt from reading the Register over the last two days: Zynga has higher revenues than ARM.

    1. Babbit55

      Revenue yes, though Arm runs a profit instead of a loss!

      Revenue = Vanity

      Profit = Sanity

      1. Kevin Johnston

        Nice distinction there

        or as my English teacher stressed - nice means clear and precise...it does NOT mean pleasant

        1. frank ly
          Headmaster

          @Kevin Johnson Re: Nice distinction there

          I recommend that you consult the Oxford English Dictionary. It's on the internet nowadays; which is nice of them.

        2. Stig2k

          Re: Nice distinction there

          I don't think 'means' means what you think it means. In other words, it 'meant' clear and precise but now it 'means' pleasant.

    2. James Micallef Silver badge
      WTF?

      $1.3 billion revenues, no profits

      which begs the question, WTF are they spending well over a billion dollars on?? They can't have THAT many servers / infrastructure and developers, so my guess is mostly that's payouts to FB to get their games hosted there.

      And a very large chunk of Facebook's revenue is coming from Zynga for exactly that privilege.

      House of cards?

  4. LinkOfHyrule
    Joke

    A friend of mine...

    ...owns some of their shares - last year he had dividends paid to him in virtual turnips!

    1. LinkOfHyrule
      FAIL

      Re: A friend of mine...

      Bugger someone further up made a similar joke - oh well don't complain people, think of it as buy one get one free but with virtual goods that you didn't actually buy - just like what Zynga do!

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
        Happy

        Re: A friend of mine...

        Happens to everyone sometime. Anyway a spammy, repetitive comment is kind of in the spirit of a story about Zynga.

        I've just thought of a joke about Zynga. Do you think next year they'll pay their dividends in virtual fruit?

        1. LinkOfHyrule
          Paris Hilton

          Re: A friend of mine...

          Either that or Bitcoins!

      2. Chicken Marengo
        Coat

        Re: A friend of mine...

        Well I was surprised to find that my accountant accepted vegetables as payment.

        It was a real turnip for the books.

        Coat.get();

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Facebook

    What was the impact of them leaving Facebook ?

  6. mertron1

    zynga was never worth the amount it came in at....you would hope that investors would have learnt from the last .com bubble....companies that dont even make a profit or have no real future projections for long term stable growth....all just hype and word of mouth...plus overinflated forecasts......to buy an app developer that only made 1 game (draw something) for £200 million says it all....their games were fun to play but even if they had gone to mobiles quicker they would have started losing money....as the games just became tiresome after a while.

    1. Tom 13

      Re: the games just became tiresome after a while.

      This is the real key to understanding the downfall of Zynga and social games built around their models.

      I played a number of their games at their peak. But instead of keeping it stable and making it interesting they started "encouraging" me to play all their other games. At some point you are trying to run to many Skinner boxes and they cease to be even playable let alone fun. And that's BEFORE the damn things start to engage in sustained crashes because they never load tested their servers or their products. And when the game becomes too much WORK people stop playing. Just like I did.

  7. Mike Flugennock
    Thumb Up

    all aboard the Schadenfreude Special!

    Y'know, after seeing all the reports here about Zynga and their skeezy operating methods, their harvesting of personal data, their invasive marketing -- well, let's just say I've got my first-class ticket for the Schadenfreude Special. Toot, tooooooot! All aboard!

    1. JB
      Happy

      Re: all aboard the Schadenfreude Special!

      Upvoted for the title!

  8. steward
    FAIL

    In their rush to make more money...

    they killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. Slower servers caused by too many interstitials - themselves annoying - turned a *game* into a *job from hell*. They got greedy and destroyed themselves in the process. Maybe they should ask for a bailout like US bankers- they used essentially the same process.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    self declared smart people

    Investors are like bankers and politicians. They are self declared smart people but they don't have a clue.

  10. jbstarbug
    FAIL

    what the hell are they spending it on

    $1.28bn in revenue and they still can't turn a profit? how can they spend that much money? Its not like their games require development of a cutting edge 3D engine or anything.

    1. Pet Peeve
      WTF?

      Re: what the hell are they spending it on

      That's a good question, but I'd like to know where they're getting a freaking billion dollars in revenue in the first place. I've never even looked at farmville, but that seems like it would have to be a hell of a lot of virtual sheep or whatever.

      1. Blitterbug
        Thumb Down

        Re: I'd like to know where they're getting a freaking billion dollars

        Their crap games have very low paywalls, for starters. Have managed to wean some very upset kids off their shitville range, thankfully. I sincerely hope they crash & burn.

        1. Blitterbug
          Unhappy

          Re: I'd like to know where they're getting a freaking billion dollars

          Low as in 'kick in at a low level', not 'low-cost'. Quite the oppo, actually.

      2. Tom 13

        Re: what the hell are they spending it on

        I imagine some is from ads, but most of it is from pay to play items. Yes, the basic stuff is free (paid for with in game coins), but the really good stuff you have to pay cash to them to get (paid for in the game with dollar bill type thingies [which can also be bought with FB points]). Either that or you've installed a cheat tool that manages your game while you are away from your PC.

  11. illiad

    no one done this yet???????????

    ba-zynga!!!!!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_Cooper

    http://youtu.be/JJHbnMATqGc

  12. kain preacher

    zynga

    I'll admit I use to play some zynga games. I went back and now they want me to watch 5-30 second long ads before playing. Screw that, I just found some thing else to do.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Really they're just trying to prove that their business model makes some cents...

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Zynga could have had titles to up-end over-hyped Far Cry 3, Hitman, COD Black Ops II

    Pincus was always about the money never the art! Instead of building 80's retro games for 9 year olds, its a pity he didn't build a real game studio while he still had the billions. He could have some titles launching that would up end this year's over-hyped games: Far Cry 3, Hitman Absolution, and COD Black Ops II...

    I wonder why he thought retro games had a perpetual future? .. Because they were social?!!! Even Zynga Poker looks like something from 10 years ago. What? Not even 3D Poker Avatars?! IMHO it was a strategic error to break away from Facebook, they should have become more joined at the hip not less.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Zynga could have had titles to up-end over-hyped Far Cry 3, Hitman, COD Black Ops II

      80s retro games? Zynga? Huh?

      Granted, my main knowledge of Zynga comes from tales of Farmville's wondrous qualities combined with my unfortunate haste in accepting the 'friendship' of someone who turned out to be an absurdly obsessive Zynga addict, and whose sole contribution to my Facebook Experience consisted of ungodly deluges of things like, "Dipshit needs a Piss Crystal to craft testicle pie so they can explore the Fart Forest! Send one and you'll get one too!" - and yes, that's absolutely a verbatim quote of a real post. Said friend quickly got thrown in the ignore pile, but if that experience, any anything else I've ever read about them, is anything to go by, Zynga has about as much to do with 80s retro games as The Register does with the American Kennel Club.

      At any rate, complaining that Pincus isn't upholding the grand principles of video game making is like being upset that The Daily Mail hasn't made a serious effort at getting a Pulitzer.

      To wit: what makes you think that Pincus was ever in the video game business to begin with? The things he makes are only called 'games' because they're closer to being games than they are to being databases or productivity applications, and nobody knows anything else convenient to call them. But by any rational measure, 'games' they are most certainly not.

      In short, don't blame Pincus for being a sell-out - he was never part of anything to sell out OF to begin with. That man was born sold-out.

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