Hasta La Gadget!

You might not have heard of casual social game developing studio King.com, but they just bumped Zynga from the top spot on Facebook with their new game Candy Crush Saga. It has attracted 9.7 million daily players on Facebook so far, and King.com is now the second largest game publisher on Facebook, with over 70 million monthly active users across all of their games.

According to AppData, Candy Crush Saga knocked Zynga’s FarmVille 2 from the number one spot, marking the first time a King.com game has been ranked number one on AppData. In total, King.com has three games in Facebook’s top 10 as far as daily active users are concerned. These are Pet Rescue Saga (with 3.2 million daily users), Bubble Witch Saga (3.6 million daily users), and obviously Candy Crush Saga.

Alex Dale, Chief Marketing Officer at King.com, says that a bug part of the company’s rapid growth and success has to do with the increased popularity casual games, and the declined interest in the resource management genre. Dale mentions that more and more people don’t have time for resource management games, so that’s why many of the Saga games have taken off.

Dale also mentions the strong appeal for puzzle games in this day and age, even after the glory days of Tetris. He mentions that “people have always liked solving puzzles,” and with the addition of a social layer, gamers are playing with friends, “which makes the experience more viral.”

[via Forbes]

King.com overtakes Zynga for top spot on Facebook is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

More bad news for Zynga today, as the social games maker has announced that it will be shutting down its Japan studio later this month. Zynga Japan is scheduled to go dark on January 31, 2013 according to Develop, and though there are a number of games shutting down with it, one in particular will remain supported after Zynga Japan closes its doors. That would be the card battle game called “Yin Ayakashi record,” which has found success on iOS and Android.

However, other titles like Montopia, Mojitomo and Machitsuku weren’t so lucky, with some of them already shut down and joining the other social games Zynga recently took offline. This particular branch of Zynga has been around since 2010, when Zynga and SoftBank purchased Japanese studio Unoh and renamed it Zynga Japan. Now, in just a few short weeks, it will cease to exist.

The dissolution notice delivered by Zynga Japan cited “various reasons” for its closure, but it isn’t hard to figure out the motivation behind shuttering the studio. Zynga has found itself in a bit of a financial rough spot as its casual gaming audience moves onto other games, so the company has implemented a number of cost-cutting initiatives that unfortunately include layoffs. This isn’t the first studio closure we’ve heard about either, as Zynga shut down its Boston studio last year.

The social games company has been looking to break into other markets, teaming up with different developers to help diversify its offerings. We’ve been seeing the product of those relationships already, so hopefully this new direction for Zynga will get it back on the road to profitability, despite the fact that studios had to be closed and people had to lose their jobs along the way. This certainly isn’t the last we’ll hear of Zynga’s financial troubles, so keep it here at SlashGear for more.

Zynga shuts down Japan studio is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Zynga has instituted its cost-reduction plan that the company talked about back in November. The cost-reduction plan involved shutting down some of the company’s video games, or at least accepting no new players in others ahead of shutdown in the coming weeks. The game developer plans to allocate its resources to its more popular games.

Closing video games altogether or eliminating new player registrations also goes along with layoffs for Zynga as the company seeks to squeeze more profit out of its operation. When the company made its IPO, its stock was trading for $10 per share and more recently, it’s trading at only $2.33 per share. So far, Zynga has laid off over 100 employees and closed some of its development offices.

The game PetVille shut down on December 30 along with Mafia Wars 2. FishVille shutdown on December 5 along with Vampire Wars and Treasure Isle. The game Indiana Jones Adventure World is closed to new players but will shut down fully until January 14.

Zynga pulled the videogame Mafia Wars Shakedown from app stores along with Forestville, Mojitomo, and Word Scramble Challenge. The game title Montopia shutdown on December 21. Some players aren’t taking the shutdowns of their favorite videogames well. It’s understandable if you spent years fixing up your virtual aquarium in FishVille and spending your real-world money on upgrades only to have the game unceremoniously canceled, you wouldn’t be happy. Zynga offered players of that title and some others a bonus package of virtual goods for one of the more popular games such as Mafia Wars, Farmville 2 or others.

[via TechCrunch]

Zynga shutters 11 of its social video games is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Back in July, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus announced that the company was pursuing a gambling license in Nevada that would see Zynga offering real-money gambling games online. The company made its first move yesterday by filing the initial application with the Nevada Gaming Control Board. Previously, Zynga only allowed betting with virtual currency in games like Zynga Poker.

Now, the only thing left to do is wait for the board to make a decision on whether Zynga will be allowed to hold a gaming license in the state or not. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Nevada Gaming Control Board will make its decision sometime in 12 to 18 months from now, and even if the decision passes, Zynga will most likely have to go through more approval processes.

Currently, Zynga Poker allows players to use real money to buy extra chips, but players are only able to cash out with virtual currency. Zynga has long been interested in offering real money games to players, but obviously, legal hurdles in the United States have led to delays. Even while Zynga is making progress with the approval process, it’ll still take at least a year before they receive a decision from the board.

At this point, Zynga seems to be scrambling for new revenue streams. The game developer’s stock tumbled to a new all-time low, and the company lost $52 million during the third quarter that ended on September 30. The company has announced major layoffs and even completely shut down some of their studios, and ended several of its games.

[via The Wall Street Journal]

Zynga applies for Nevada gambling license to bring real-money gambling online is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Zynga and Facebook aren’t the bosom buddies they used to be, and as a result, Zynga’s shares are down 7-percent. This comes after a regulatory filing revealed the contract between the two companies has loosened their ties quite a bit. Among other things, Facebook will be able to start producing its own games for the social network next year, something it previously was not able to.

Zynga is no longer contractually bound to exclusively provide its games on Facebook, nor to give Facebook any exclusive games. Likewise, the company is no longer required to have Facebook advertisements on its properties. For Facebook’s part in this, although the social network is now allowed to produce its own games, it stated the it does not have plans to do so.

This, of course, boots Zynga from the Facebook pedestal upon which it perched, wherein it previously had a special status with the social network. While the company has been taking steps to become more independent, it garners most of its revenue from Facebook, making this move a bit precarious. The relationship is symbiotic, however, with Facebook also making a decent amount of revenue from Zynga, although the amount has dropped almost 50-percent in the last year.

Zynga has been under fire lately for its quiet layoff that took place during Apple’s event last month. Employees were backhanded, given only two hours to pack up their stuff and get out. This came after reports that the company experienced a $23 million loss in the second quarter of this year.

[via Wired]

Zynga loses Facebook’s favor, shares drop 7% is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.