Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA), which remained unstable throughout fiscal 2013, is undergoing substantial strategic and management changes along with switching off its some of the best game titles. Revenue and profits for the gaming company narrowed due to the decline in the user base. However, titles such as Farmville, Farmville 2 and Zynga Poker were the savior for the social game maker, in turbulent times, says a report from Nasdaq.
Faced severe blow from every dimension
In fiscal 2013, Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) performed very poor in some of the most significant metrics. The monthly active users, the number of daily active users, revenue and adjusted EBITDA all shrank amid rapidly declining popularity of its titles. Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:F) also left Zynga in the middle of the road, and some popular titles suffered loss of players resulting in their close.
The game titles that were closed to bring down its operating cost were; The Ville, Empires & Allies, Dream Zoo and Zynga City on Tencent. In 2013, Zynga also slashed its workforce by around 18% or around 52 employees saving around $70-$80 million in pre-tax for the company.
Experiment with real money gaming
In the starting of fiscal 2013, Zynga experimented with some real money games in Britain, launching Zynga Plus Poker and Zynga Plus Casino.
The game maker envisioned bringing the real money game into play in the United States, but soon dropped the idea and decided to carry on with its regular social franchisees. The market for real money gaming is huge and unexplored, which implies that Zynga could gain significant turf in this zone. Gambling Platform, Betable stated that the online gambling market excluding the United States is more than $32 billion. Similarly, H2 Gambling Capital, a gambling research group stated that the global online market was worth 21.73 billion euros or 19 billion pounds, in 2012. It is expected that the online gambling market would surge around 30% over the next three years.
Mattrick provides a ray of hope
The shares of Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) soared 20% within a few days of the announcement that Don Mattrick would be the new CEO of the company. Prior to Zynga, Mattrick has proved his caliber while heading the Xbox division in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) as well as Electronic Arts.
In fiscal 2014, the game maker would target mobile gaming and would further develop its own gaming platform. Also, the company is oozing with confidence after the advent of new leadership expecting more consistency in its business model.
