The brutal reality behind Zynga's decline

Zynga's 2014-year earnings show that the company's revenue in the past year was 690 million U.S. dollars, down 21%, online gaming revenue of 537 million dollars, a year-on-year decline of 29%, the cumulative loss of 226 million U.S. dollars, expected next year's income of about 155 million ~1.65 billion.

Still, the company's CEO, Don Mattrick, Martek the year as "a Year of progress" (A of progress). Perhaps, in his view, the cost of cutting the 71 employees on the other side of the ocean to save 7 million of billions of dollars is also considered a "step forward" in the "savings" of $ technologists dollars). With more than 100 days to go into China for five years, Zynga finally chose to give up. Today, the once noisy mobile gaming company formally announced the closure of its branch in China.

In the second quarter of 2013, the number of Zynga daily active users (DAUs) fell by nearly half to 39 million in the fourth quarter of 2013, falling to 27 million, to 25 million in the fourth quarter of 2014.

In fact, early on, everyone knew that the company had been rescued, in its 2012-year cost of 200 million dollars to acquire Omgpop-after the draw something's daily live users in the acquisition one months quickly from 15 million to 10 million! So, even more so when Facebook ended its partnership in 2013.

The decline of Zynga and Zynga games is not a case, they are not the first and definitely not the last. In the field of mobile gaming, there are many cases, they "Xing also its death also suddenly", in the short term become the market "explosive products" after the rapid mediocrity and even annihilation.

From a certain point of view, the games we take inventory may be the real and brutal side of the contemporary Shiten mobile gaming industry.

1, "Angry Birds" (Angry Birds), Developer: Rovio

A bird flies all the time.

Before 2009, Finland's iconic company was Nokia, and thereafter it was Rovio. Before launching "Angry Birds", the small studio has made 53 obscure games in obscurity, with a shot and red game downloading more than 42 million a year on the line, 12 million of which are paid downloads, bringing a monthly revenue of 1 million dollars to the studio.

2012, "Angry Birds" cumulative download more than 1 billion times, "Angry Birds: Space Edition" on-line 3 days download more than 10 million times, in 35 days to break through 50 million times, December Month active users reached 263 million, the annual income of more than 152 million euros (2010 is 65 million euros, 2011 to 75.6 million euros), after-tax net profit of 55 million euros (201 years of 3 million euros, 2011 to 35.4 million euros). During the hottest days, Rovio even opened the "Angry Birds" theme park in Finland and Britain.

Up to now, the Rovio development of "Angry Birds" and its derivative games amounted to 12, only in the past two years has launched 6. However, it is from this time, "Angry Birds" finally like the game in general after the climax of the flight after the fall.

In 2013, Rovio's annual revenue was € 156 million, with net profits falling more than half to 26.9 million euros a year ago, and the Finnish company was virtually stagnant in 2013 compared with companies such as King, Supercell and Mojang.

October 2014, the latest "Angry Bird: Transformers" After the launch of 3 weeks, download more than 10 million times, and the peak period has not been the same. Since 2013, Rovio has stopped publishing active users.

In the 2015, the two games in the Rivio program remain the subject of Angry Birds.

2, "You draw I guess" (Draw something), Developer: Omgpop

Just as the spring breeze comes, how fast it dies

Omgpop is actually a star start-up company. It is the 2006 y Combinator, selected in the "Time" magazine 2009 year 50 Best website.

However, until the "you draw me guess" turned out, the company was magnified in the spotlight of the public.

March 2012, "You draw I guess" officially launched, less than a week, the download volume exceeded 12 million, daily active users more than 7.1 million, "Temple Escape" (Temple Run) online 5 months live users only more than 7 million, by the middle of March, "You draw I guess" in Facebook On the day live users reached 10.8 million, more than the previous has been the first words of Zynga's guessing game with Friends (8.6 million), became the most popular game on Facebook, by late March, the game's daily active users continue to beat more than 15 million, On the 50th day after the game is online, the download volume of "You Draw me guess" is more than 50 million times.

Zynga, who had already shown the business development dilemma, was impatient to buy omgpop when it was the hottest time for you to draw my guess.

After the acquisition was completed, Omgpop CEO Potter, Dan Porter, was asked how to reconcile the differences between the corporate culture and Omgpop of Zynga's data analysis to play, and he replied:

We talked to the team who did words with Friends about how to keep their company culture, and we talked to each other frankly, otherwise I wouldn't have done this deal with Zynga ... We now have the resources and support of Zynga, which means you can put all your efforts into creative games.

However, things are not as people wish.

Not long after the acquisition, popular's "You Draw me guess" because of public curiosity and the weakening of the sense of participation gradually become a scandal, this acquisition not only failed to save Zynga, and eventually Omgpop cornered.

April 2013, "You draw I guess 2" launched, but it has never been as much of a concern as it was before, and Zynga has not only insisted on shutting down the Omgpop site, despite the demands of the original team, but has also terminated the company's development program for other games besides "you draw my guess" in acquiring Omgpop 13 months later, Zynga eventually chose to shut down the company.

3, "Plant vs. Zombies" (Plants vs. Zombies), Developer: PopCap

EA ruins People's total tireless, often make the player tears ripple

Great Treasure Open! It inherits the glorious tradition of creative gaming companies. Bullfrog, Black Island, Westwood at this moment the soul possessed! Bao Kai represents the long history and tradition of creative game company, at this moment it is not a company in battle. Victory belongs to "Plants vs Zombies", belongs to the treasure open, belong to the creative game of the company, belong to all creative game people!

In 2001, the newly established company launched the "Gem Bejeweled" (bejeweled), as of 2008, "Gem bejeweled" download more than 150 million times, so far has sold more than 75 million copies-2013, "Gem bejeweled" derivative works candy Crush Saga continued to be successful, helping King to become the most successful gaming company on the Facebook platform.

2009, "Plant vs. Zombies" turned out to shock the entire game industry, a year later, the treasure opened for this to play and interesting as a significant symbol of the Strategy tower Defense game launched the iOS version, also received unprecedented response, the first day on the line sold 300,000 copies.

In July 2011, EA purchased the treasure at the cost of 650 million dollars in cash and 100 million dollars worth of shares at the time, and attached a earn-out clause to supplement the payment based on the performance of the future PO.

As early as 2009, EA bought Facebook game developer Playfish at $400 million, trying to wedge into a broad market for social gaming, with EA's monthly active users on Facebook increasing to around 48 million after the takeover.

August 2013, "Plant vs. Zombies 2: A Wonderful journey of space-time" (Plants vs. Zombies 2:it's About time) in the app Store online, download more than 16 million times in 5 days, the download volume by the end of the month is close to 25 million times.

Despite the early successes, the Plants vs. Zombies are not as stable as they were in the previous generation, a worse issue in the Chinese version of the game, the Chinese side in order to improve the game's benefits to reduce the items bar, improve the difficulty of the game and internal purchase behavior caused by the player's great dissatisfaction.

"Plant vs Zombies 2" is gradually becoming a not like the original surprise game, so the player gradually gradually abandoned it.

May 2013, "Plant vs. Zombies: Adventure" landing on Facebook, but in July 2014, EA announced the shutdown of the game, in a statement, PO said that the decision was made because the game "no fire enough to ensure the extent of sustainable development" (implies Achieved the broader popularity needed to keep it on).

In the second quarter of 2014, EA reported that the company's mobile gaming revenues were $75 million, and that mobile gaming had a revenue of $123 million and an increase of 164% in the second quarter of 2015, while Xbox and PlayStation The platform's performance grew to $631 million in the same period, with a growth rate of 204%. Thus, since February 2014, EA has even launched a third-person shooting feature of the Xbox, PC and PlayStation platform, "Plant vs. Zombies: Garden Battlefield" (Plants vs. Zombies:garden Warfare)--one months earlier, Former company CEO Robert Roberts, who has been on the job for 9 years, chose to resign.

When EA bought the treasure, he also had great expectations for the future: we chose EA because they have developed a culture of leading digital games, working with EA, and we will continue to upgrade our game and service levels and dedicate more social, mobile and surprise to more global users.

Unfortunately, these wishes finally did not achieve the same, and the Bullfrog (Bullfrog), Westwood (Westwood), the moment from being bought by EA, "Plant vs Zombies" and the treasure opened actually died.

Let's look at the above three games, "Angry Birds" because of overuse and gradually mediocre, and Rovio is willing to rely on this subject to carry out a lays way to develop, and Zynga's style of acting in essence, almost no difference, when one or several of their works in the market as a big winner , they are afraid to continue to innovate and develop new types of subjects and works, and they end up being replaced by new innovators on the market.

For Zynga, the acquisition of "You draw me guess" is more like a speculative act, they are trying to replicate a successful piece of work quickly, but ironically, the notorious Zynga, which has always decided to play by data and market analysis, has failed to analyze the market chaos behind the fiery "you draw me guess". The danger of irrationality and collapse, in the face of the already fanatical consumer and market, these cold data eventually betrayed Zynga, the company's own consequences, is Tiu Renderen.

After being acquired by big companies, how to continue to maintain their own characteristics and style while getting the business return, this is not only the puzzle of small and medium-sized game development companies, but also all startups may face the dilemma, for players and game development, EA is undoubtedly a failure of the typical, Excessive pursuit of business interests and neglect of the essence of the game is content, themes and manifestations of continuous innovation, so that a lot of good potential game works were ruined by EA, while others could have become great works of the EA series of continuous policy in the end of the year, the final mediocrity.

This is not only the news of Zynga's shutdown of Chinese companies, but it is not just a painful history of a company that has shrunk from its peak of nearly 7 billion trillion to 2.5 billion now, and has not only been a few of the past that have featured each other and then sunk into ordinary games.

In fact, this is the game world, welcome to the game world, this bloody cruel beautiful world.