Analysis says Zynga games attract a large number of new players

Lead: The online edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, published in Monday, says Zynga's social games attract a large number of new gamers.　　Some of Zynga's game enthusiasts have never played any type of video game before. The following is the full text of the article: before the first contact with Zynga's FarmVille in late 2009, Rona Villa Saivin (lorna田 Villa Seven) had never played any video games. Yoav, 49 years old, is now accustomed to taking care of her own virtual farm every day and exchanging items with her social-networking friends, including her mother.　　In social games like "FarmVille", she says, "When you attack others, your adrenaline doesn't rise." Yoav is typical of social gamers, and this type of player opens up a hot new market for the video gaming industry. In this area, Zynga attracts millions of players with FarmVille, CityVille, and the recently launched Empire and Alliance.　　Zynga is now preparing for an IPO. Zynga has been established for 4 years and is currently in the forefront of the social gaming industry.　　According to AppData's data, the number of active users in Zynga games is 268.9 million a month. Traditional video game market mainly for game fans, such players are keen on "Call of Duty" and "World of Warcraft" and other games.　　In addition, there are some players interested in casual games, such as "Gem Bejeweled" and "Angry Birds" and so on. Attur Baga, a senior analyst at ThinkEquity Games and digital media, said the rise of social networks such as Facebook had brought new players to the video gaming industry, which had never played video games before. He says his 50-year-old sister has never contacted a computer until her family persuaded her to use Facebook 3 years ago.　　At present, she is the "FarmVille" player. "The game like FarmVille not only attracts casual gamers, but also attracts people who have not played games before, such as my sister," says Baja. "Currently, the number of social gamers in the United States accounts for about 20% of the U.S. population. According to Singlegrain, an Internet traffic consultancy, the American social gamers will reach 69 million by 2012.　　35% of them have never played any type of video game before. Social elements help success traditional gamers may not like social games, but such games are still popular with quite a few players.　　Unlike traditional games that pursue strategy and manipulation, social gamers, if they want to be successful, must get help from social networking friends, such as trading free game tools to each other. After seeing updates from Facebook friends, Yoav began experimenting with FarmVille and other social games. She thenFound she was interested in decorating her own farm with lovely plants and houses.　　She even persuaded her husband to play with her and to compete with her mother. Social games don't take up a lot of her time, Yoav says, and it only takes a little time to play games like this. "It's relaxing," she says. When I go home to play games, I don't have to think about anything, and I don't need to think about work. "The virtual goods business is currently buying virtual items such as homes and decorations in social games, costing 20 of dollars a month," he said.　　Although there are not many players who buy virtual items in social games, this is an area of concern for game developers. According to emarketer, social gaming revenues in the U.S. market will be $1.09 billion trillion this year, up from $856 million last year.　　Nearly 60% of them came from sales of virtual goods, or $653 million trillion, above last year's 510 million dollars. Currently, the top four games in the social gaming market are Zynga games, followed by "CityVille", "FarmVille", "The Empire and the League", and "Texas Poker".　　According to AppData's data, the number of players in these four games is 90 million, 40 million, 37.6 million and 35.3 million, respectively. Favored by investors Zynga is now a private company, but its stake in the two-tier market has attracted many investors. According to Nextup's estimate, Zynga's market capitalisation is now about $9 billion trillion.　　In contrast, as of Friday, the U.S. stock market closed, EA's market value of 7.2 billion U.S. dollars. Zynga's rivals are becoming more and more. Last July, Walt Disney bought Playdom, a social-game developer, at a price of 763.2 million dollars. In 2009, EA bought another social game developer, Playfish, at a price of 400 million dollars. It has recently been reported that EA is trying to buy a game with 1 billion dollars.　　In addition, EA will launch the "Sims" Facebook version. Lou Kerner, a social media analyst at Wedbush Nomura, said many game developers around the world could quickly attract a large number of players because of the characteristics of their social games. These companies include Crowdstar, Kabam and Wooga. "Social gaming is a fast-growing industry that attracts investment and new competitors," says Kona. Zynga has a competitive edge and can promote new games with a huge user base. Facebook has benefited from the development of social games that Facebook has benefited from. Since Friday, Facebook has started asking all game developers on the platform to use Facebook credits virtual currency uniformly. The change is significant because Facebook will be credits from deals involving FacebookDivided into 30%. Baja said that while the initial game developers might feel that some of the profits were grabbed by Facebook, the social gaming industry needed a seamless payment system to drive more people to buy virtual goods. "If you can make the cake bigger, why not?" he says. (Lili)