Zynga CEO: Still cautious about investing heavily in mobile gaming

On July 11, according to Reuters, Zynga CEO Mark Ping Cass said Tuesday that while the entire gaming industry is moving aggressively into the mobile market, he remains cautious about investing heavily in mobile gaming.

In recent months, game industry watchers have stressed that as global Internet users tend to spend their time on smartphones and tablets rather than on traditional PCs, developers must adjust accordingly.

The company's share price has been crushed by the market's concern that Zynga will continue to rely on its Facebook platform, down nearly 50% from its IPO offering (USD 10) last December.

Pincus, who attended an industry conference in San Francisco, said that it was clear that game companies should invest heavily in mobile gaming, but that Zynga's focus would remain on web games, given the uncertainty surrounding the maturity of the mobile platform. Zynga spent 183 million dollars in March acquiring New York Gaming Studios Omgpop.

"We've invested more than 10 million dollars in potential games like the ville," says Ping-Cass, "and we don't have enough confidence to make that kind of investment in the mobile world." I believe we will take that step in due course in the next few years, but now is not the time, I think there is uncertainty. ”

Pincus says he is not fully committed to the mobile market now because there are still unresolved issues on the immature mobile platform, such as whether Adobe Air and HTML5 Technologies will become recognized industry standards. "We've invested a lot in the mobile world, including building teams, developing products, and making big deals." "At the moment it is clear that all of us should invest heavily in mobile games, but I don't think it's time to put all the chips on the table," says Ping. ”

Pincus's hesitation in the mobile market contrasts with Zynga's dedication to its web-hit game, although the games have been around for years, but Zynga engineers have been analyzing and refining their advanced social mechanisms. Zynga's games on the Facebook platform, such as Town Town (CityVille) and happy Farm, helped it reach 223 million monthly average subscribers in 2011, with revenue of 1.1 billion dollars.

To reduce reliance on Facebook, Zynga announced in June that it would set up its own platform to encourage developers to develop games on it. Zynga has also launched some new games. Pincus says Zynga has convened 100 developers who spend more than 1.5 of their time to launch a new social game like "Virtual Life" (Sims), the Ville, and a restaurant virtual game Chefville.

However, Ping-Cass admits that from the past, it will be difficult to launch these games across platforms. "For Farmville, we were just beginning to be ambitious," says Ping-Cass, "and we've done a lot of work to create a completely synchronized gaming experience." ”