Have you found yourself on FaceBook building barns and raising animals or running a crime family. Well the company behind those games and others is a privately owned social gaming developer named Zynga. Everyday more then 65million people log in to play Zynaga developed games since it first got started in 2007. With the help of outside investors, acquisitions and great marketing it has become the leading maker of online social gaming ahead of EA Sports. They recently purchased another social gaming company Conduit Labs and will use the studio for product development. Its ironic how the logo of the company consist of an American Bulldog, ‘it’s a dog eat dog world’. In efforts to market new gaming titles the company goes all out. In a recent launching of Mafia Wars: Las Vegas Edition, the company got Mr. Marketable Snoop Dogg to blow up a armored vehicle in the middle of the Nevada desert. Zynga streamed it live on Ustream and broke a record for most streams with 2 million. The company has also done marketing deals with 7-11 for cups and ice cream, along with Yahoo to allow the games on their network. Google is in talks with them for gaming properties and has also invested money in the company. Disney is no fool so they recently purchased social gaming developer Playdom, makers of Social City and Sorority Life; to compete in that market and add to their already vast portfolio of companies(ESPN,ABC). Zynga recently partnered with FaceBook on a 5 year deal which entitles the social network a 30% cut of all Zyngas gaming revenue and will allow users to be able to redeem their credits on more Zynga developed games. . With the company being private their not required to open the books, but there have been reports of them making over $300 million last year, and is on pace to make more then $800million this year. They also just hired a new Chief Financial Officer to handle the big money. If they do decid to go public in the future this company would be ideal for investing in stocks and bonds barns.
