Social gaming giant trading below $5 for first time after analyst report paints declining picture of Facebook gaming; NASDAQ temporarily halts short sales of stock.
Zynga shares plummeted more than 10 percent in trading today, with Reuters reporting that the NASDAQ stock exchange has temporarily prohibited investors from short selling the stock, effectively betting on its continued decline.
The Farmville developer closed today's trading at $4.98, down from yesterday's close of $5.55. Zynga had its IPO late last year, with its stock initially trading at $10 per share. It topped out at $15.91 in late February, but has since been trending downward.
Today's declines were attributed to an investor report from Cowen & Co. in which analyst Doug Kreutz said the market for Facebook games was in an accelerating user tailspin. NASDAQ also stopped trading in Zynga last month, after the disappointing Facebook IPO had investors indiscriminately dumping shares in multiple social media companies.
Brendan Sinclair has been a games journalist since 1999. His tastes are eclectic, though he has a definite affinity for games with arcade roots. He's Canadian, but has also been at home in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, and San Francisco.
why do people continue to whine and moan about zynga's causal games like Mafia Wars and Farmville my family has played video games in years until they saw games like Farmville, Cafe World and Bejewled Blitz and now they are playing games more than ever before so why all the bitching
Some good news, all this social crap that's milking gullible people to death and annoying their Facebook friends has to fade away at least to some extent.
Was Zynga behind the poker game from Facebook? Then I guess I also played game from Zynga much as I don't like to admit it.
1 Like All their games are just gimmicks. The biggest gimmick of them all though is getting people to buy fake poker chips with real money. If I'm going to spend real money to play poker I want the chance to at least win real money.
I remember when the zynga founder said that the new trend of gaming is social gaming. This proves that having mild success in one aspect of gaming doesn't mean you understand the industry as a whole. zynga's timer seems to be almost up.
I think a lot of players finally found out they were taken advantage of, with all the pay-to-win garbage in these games.
Oh, how I love when these companies that boom out of nowhere start to face the reality of the Capitalism: money comes, money goes, time is money, time over...
This really isn't surprising, and I think most people were aware that their initial offering was overpriced.
Next, or at least let flash games take the spotlight of casual games, I recently tried a flash game on my laptop, since I was bored, I think it was called The Last Stand Union City, really impressive.
Mafia Wars and Farmville were very successful games. But the games became too demanding and they got too greedy coming out with better premium items too quickly. They punished the paying players who were also their best customers. They just made some really terrible business decisions which might have benefited them in the short term, but killed the game long term. Also, the market has become saturated with facebook games, and Zynga hasn't had a hit like MW or Farmville since then.
Zynga just needs to come out with an amazing game. There is never a limit to innovation.
I don't think Zynga has ever made an actual GAME. They seem to be taking the latest (and not so latest) psychology tricks for getting people to pay, stiching them together, and dropping some computer graphics on top.
@Zloth2 I hear what you're saying. It wasn't a game according to most traditional uses of that word. I think it just depends on what definition you're talking about. What is a game? Is Sims 3 a game? Is Brain Age/Cooking Mama a game? What makes Minecraft a game? The definition of that word is very broad, and pretty much unrestricted because you can create games that would have never been classified as a game before.
I definitely agree with you that Mafia Wars must have been made with the goal of making it psychologically addicting first and foremost.
Even the few and far between games on Facebook that were actually fun for an hour a day have all slipped into the same model of constant ads and endless friend pestering just to get another five minutes of play. The timeline redesign has made it harder for even the die-hard addicts to keep track of their games and the whole thing has been heading for a cliff edge for a while. 'Real' gaming publishers take note: ads and micro-transactions might bring in the revenue initially but will just leave you with a big empty void where your userbase once was at some point.
3 Like So let me get this straight..... Now that the newness of Facebook has worn off, interest in the games on Facebook are declining as well??? WHO WOULD HAVE EVER THOUGHT THAT WOULD HAPPEN? (sarcasm, sarcasm, sarcasm)
1 Like I've (briefly) tried a couple of these Facebook games and they suck. I can't believe some people actually spend alot of real money on them.
Hm but how people on wallstreet decided to dump zynga stocks? Why ? They got info about how much people stop buying Zynga credits? I dont know anyone who bought Zynga coins..
1 Like Their games suck, all of them are flash friend farmers.....just crap games. Want to know where good REAL flash games are at? Kongregate.com....seriously they have good games there, free to sign up, I think you can just play but not too sure but they have games in every genre no matter what you like.....I'd play there if you really want to play flash games.
8 Like Really not a suprise."Facebook" gaming was just a trend,a very popular for some time,but as it is with all trends,they fade away quickly,only to be replaced with something else,equally short lasting...
1 Like Yeah,back in the day,I do remember some of my friends being crazy about Farmville,Mafia Wars,and other Zynga crap,always collecting crops or whatever crap.That lasted about a year,then they simply forgot it ever existed...
Whoever thought the trend would seriously live on and heavily invested into it can't be called anything but an idiot...
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