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Zynga
1. http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/26/zynga-takes-its-most-popular-game-cityville-to-google/
Zynga takes its most popular game, CityVille, to Google+
September 26, 2011 | Dean Takahashi
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Zynga announced today it has
taken its most popular game, CityVille, to the fledgling Google+ social network.
The move could be strategically important for both Google and Zynga, which need each other: Zynga
needs Google+ to help it gain more independence from Facebook, and Google+ needs successful
games like Zynga‘s CityVille to lure users over to its fledgling social network. Meanwhile, the move is
a blow for leading social network Facebook, which has had CityVille as an exclusive in Western
markets.
Zynga previously announced in July that it was taking CityVille to China through the Tencent social
network. CityVille definitely needs a shot in the arm. Today, it has about 72 million monthly active
users, down from its peak of more than 100 million users. Meanwhile, the No. 2 game on Facebook,
The Sims Social from Electronic Arts, now has more than 60 million monthly active users.
The addition of CityVille to Google+ should help the growth of games on Google‘s platform.
Previously, Zynga had launched a version of Zynga Poker on Google+. Under an agreement with
Facebook, it wasn‘t clear if Zynga would be allowed to move its games to other platforms. In
exchange for supporting Facebook Credits and marketing support from Facebook, Zynga agreed to
keep its games exclusive to Facebook. But the deal has a variety of conditions under which Zynga
can move its games to other platforms, evidently.
San Francisco-based Zynga said this is one more step in its mission to ―connect the world through
games and create play for everyone, everywhere — no matter which platform they play on.‖ Zynga is
hoping that diversification will help it grow faster and produce more stable revenues. That, in turn,
should help it go public through its planned initial public offering.
2. http://farmvillefreak.com/farmville-special-items/zynga-players-raise-1-5-million-for-haiti-farmville-
alone-raises-1-million
Zynga players raise 1.5 Million for Haiti: FarmVille alone raises 1 Million!
Posted on January 20, 2010 7:37 pm by FarmVille Freak FarmGoddess
9 Share 109
In a press release from Zynga, the developers of FarmVille, they have announced that Zynga players have raised
over 1.5 million dollars by purchasing virtual goods. All of the funds earned have been donated to Haitian Relief
efforts.
FarmVille players alone have raised 1 million dollars with the Sweet Seeds for Haiti- Haitian Relief campaign. In
an effort to reward FarmVille players, Zynga promised farmers that if 1 million was raised everyone would be
getting a special surpise in honor of the campaign‘s success.
Says FarmVille,
―Last week, tragedy struck Haiti. Millions of people are in dire need of assistance, and we called on you to help.
In an incredible act of charity, you‘ve donated over $1 million to the Zynga Haiti Relief Fund. As a small token of
our thanks, we‘ll be giving all players a surprise next week.‖
Read the official Zynga press release here:
http://blog.zynga.com/2010/01/zynga-players-raise-over-15-million-for-haiti-in-five-days.html
Tags: farmville, haiti earthquake, haiti relief effort, sweet seeds for haiti, zynga
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 at 7:37 pm and is filed under Farmville in News,FarmVille Special Items. You
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3. http://finance.ninemsn.com.au/newsbusiness/aap/8224074/zynga-players-raise-1-million-for-japan-
relief
Reported by AAP
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Zynga, maker of popular social networking games such as
"FarmVille," said Monday that its players have raised $1
million for Save the Children's Japan relief efforts.
+ MORE BUSINESS NEWS
Zynga spokeswoman Dani Dudeck said in a message on her Twitter feed that the
money for the Japan Earthquake Tsunami Children in Emergency Fund was raised in 36
hours.
"We at Zynga are grateful that we can offer some assistance to Save the Children by
mobilizing our technology, people and amazing community of players to support this
organization in providing aid to the children of Japan," the company added in a blog
post.
Zynga asked users to donate money through the purchase of virtual goods in FarmVille,
CityVille, FrontierVille and its other games.
All of the proceeds from the purchase of sweet potatoes in CityVille, radishes in
FarmVille or kobe cows in FrontierVille are going towards Save the Children's relief
efforts.
Zynga has raised millions of dollars in recent years through similar campaigns, most
notably for the relief efforts in Haiti.
Zynga is one of a number of US technology giants offering digital ways to donate to
Japan's recovery from the massive earthquake and devastating tsunami.
Apple has set up an option on iTunes to allow users to donate from $5 to $200 to the
American Red Cross and the Red Cross has launched a campaign on Facebook
through the social media giant's Causes function.
Twitter is providing information and advice as well as directing people to resources on
the ground and offering ways to donate to help survivors.
Google's Crisis Response page offers a "person finder" service for people searching for
information about friends or family and other resources.
4.
5. [3]
Zynga (/ˈzɪŋɡə/) is a social network game developer located in San Francisco, United States. The
company developsbrowser-based games that work both stand-alone and as application
widgets on social networking websites such asFacebook and MySpace.
As of November 2011, Zynga's games on Facebook have over 200 million monthly active
[4]
users. Four of Zynga's games,CityVille, Texas HoldEm Poker, FarmVille, and Empires & Allies, are
among the top five most widely used game applications on Facebook, with CityVille having over 54
[4]
million monthly active users.
[5]
Reportedly valued at $15 billion to $20 billion, Zynga filed with the SEC to raise up to $1 billion in an
[6][1]
initial public offering on July 1, 2011. Zynga has made strategic investments in several software
[7]
companies, including Membase andCouchbase.
Contents
[hide]
1 History
2 Business model
o 2.1 Platinum Purchase Program
3 Relationship with Facebook
4 Studios and subsidiaries
o 4.1 Current
5 Controversies
o 5.1 Spam concerns
o 5.2 Game quality
o 5.3 Replication of existing games
o 5.4 Viability
o 5.5 Scam ads
o 5.6 Other criticism
o 5.7 Intellectual property
6 Funding
7 Games
o 7.1 Games discontinued
8 Zynga.org
9 References
10 External links
[edit]History
Zynga was founded in July 2007 by Mark Pincus. The early supporting founding team included Eric
Schiermeyer, Michael Luxton, Justin Waldron, Kyle Stewart, Scott Dale, John Doerr, Steve Schoettler,
[8]
Kevin Hagan, and Andrew Trader. They received US$29 million in venture finance from several
6. firms, led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byersin July 2008, at which time they appointed
[9]
former Electronic Arts Chief Creative Officer Bing Gordon to the board. At that time, they also
[9]
bought YoVille, a large virtual world social network game. According to the company's website, as of
[10]
December 2009, it had 60 million unique daily active users.
[11][12]
Zynga was named after an American bulldog once owned by Mark Pincus. They use a bulldog
as their symbol.
[13]
As of September 2010, Zynga had over 1,200 employees.
On February 17, 2010, Zynga opened Zynga India in Bangalore, the company‘s first office outside the
[14]
United States.
[15]
On March 18, 2010, Zynga confirmed that it will open a second international office in Ireland.
On May 7, 2010, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch reported that Zynga was threatening to leave
Facebook altogether in the wake of Facebook's requiring exclusive use ofFacebook Credits for
[16]
monetization in applications. After Facebook negotiations for having Zynga host its games solely on
Facebook fell through, Facebook retaliated by shutting off notifications for several Zynga games,
[16]
including FarmVille. Plans surfaced for Zynga to distance itself from Facebook by creating a new
[17]
"Zynga Live" network, to be called ZLive. On May 18, 2010, Facebook and Zynga entered into a
five-year relationship to expand the use of Facebook Credits in Zynga's games. Sheryl Sandberg,
COO of Facebook, was quoted as saying, "We are pleased to enter into a new agreement with Zynga
to enhance the experience for Facebook users who play Zynga games." The companies stated they
were testing the use of Facebook Credits, which would allow Facebook to effectively capture 30% of
[18]
any user's spending in the game, and their use would be gradually rolled out to all games. In a May
24, 2011 discussion at TechCrunch Disrupt, Arrington and Bing Gordon described the incident as the
[19]
"Cuban Missile Crisis of tech".
[20]
On June 3, 2010, Zynga acquired Challenge Games.
With the acquisition of Dextrose, now Zynga Germany, representing the company's first expansion
into Europe, Zynga has 13 studios around the world, including offices in Sunnyvale, Los Gatos, Los
Angeles, Boston, Baltimore, Bangalore, Beijing, and Tokyo.
On October 5, 2010 Bonfire Studios was acquired by Zynga. It was renamed "Zynga Dallas". The
acquisition brought Zynga's workforce to more than 1300 employees worldwide.
[21]
As reported by Bloomberg and others, stock trades on the private stock sale service SharesPost
established a valuation of above $5 billion for the company, greater than the public market
capitalization of gaming industry leader Electronic Arts and had more than 320 million registered
[22][23]
users, 1,300 employees and estimated revenues above $500 million for 2010.
On December 2, 2010, Zynga announced that it acquired the Texas-based mobile game
[24]
developer Newtoy, Inc., developers of the game "Words with Friends", and renamed the studio to
[25]
Zynga With Friends.
[26]
In December 2010, Zynga's game CityVille surpassed FarmVille as its most popular game with over
[27]
61 million monthly active users and a base of over 16 million daily active users.
Zynga has acquired the New York-based game developer Area/Code, now renamed Zynga New
York.
7. In March 2011, Zynga announced the acquisition of the team from Massachusetts game developer
[28]
Floodgate Entertainment. It was Zynga's tenth acquisition in ten months.
[29]
In April 2011, Zynga announced the acquisition of MarketZero, an online poker tracker company.
Also in March 2011, the company channeled 100% of direct donations or revenue from virtual goods
purchases through its social games (over $1 million) to Japan for the relief efforts related to the 2011
[30]
Tōhoku earthquake. The company had been criticized in the past for keeping up to 50% of
[31]
donations it collected.
[32]
In April 2011, the company partnered with Lady Gaga in a new game offering. In May 2011, the
company was reported to be in the process of raising an additional $500 million with a valuation at
[33]
$10 billion
[34]
In May of 2011, the company launched its most complicated game to date—Empires and Allies.
[1]
As of July 1, 2011, the company had 2,000 employees. In September 2011, Zynga announced that
their biggest game CityVille has made the transition to google+ after about 95% decline in their
[35]
profits.
[edit]Business model
Zynga is supported in two manners: via direct credit card payments and partner
[36][37]
businesses. Several Zynga games require an "Energy" characteristic to play. Engaging in
"Missions", a core feature of many games, consumes a certain amount of energy. After expending
energy, it slowly replenishes to the character's maximum limit. This can take minutes or several hours
(energy replenishes whether or not players are logged into the game). After energy is replenished,
players can engage in additional missions. Waiting for energy to replenish is a significant limiting
factor in the games. Their support mechanisms take advantage of this.
Zynga games are linked to offers from a number of partners. Players can accept credit card offers,
take surveys or buy services from Zynga's partners in order to obtain game credits, which would allow
them to replenish their character's energy or receive premium currency that could be exchanged for
other various virtual goods.
[36]
Players may also purchase game credits directly from Zynga via credit cards or PayPal. From
within the game, players can purchase the points for a fee: US$5.00 for 21 game credits, for example.
In March 2010 Zynga started selling prepaid cards for virtual currency at more than 12,800 stores
[38]
across the US.
Zynga also sells advertising sponsorships within some games such as movie tie-ins and other
[39]
brands.
[edit]Platinum Purchase Program
In September 2010, Gawker reported that Zynga had set up a "Platinum Purchase Program" allowing
members to purchase virtual currency in amounts over $500 at favorable rates by making a payment
[40]
via wire transfer. In contrast, the normal maximum purchase limits are $50 to $200. As with other
social game companies, Zynga depends on a small core of large spenders, known within the industry
[41]
as "whales", for a large part of its income. Ryan Tate, author of the post, speculated that the
program was a way for gaming addicts to feed their obsession, and compared the secrecy of the
[40]
program to the secrecy of drug deals.
8. [edit]Relationship with Facebook
On July 18, 2011, Zynga filed an addendum to its Form S-1 detailing its relationship with Facebook,
including the 2010 five-year agreement to exclusively use Facebook credits. According to the
released information, all covered Zynga games that use Facebook integration must remain exclusive
to Facebook for the duration of the agreement, and Zynga is not allowed to release new games on an
undisclosed list of other social networks. Also, Zynga is required to notify Facebook of any new
games at least one week prior to their release. Finally, Facebook agrees to help Zynga reach "certain
growth targets for monthly unique users of Covered Zynga Games" and to share ad revenue with
[42][43]
Zynga.
On October 11, 2011, Zynga announced plans to create their own platform in which users can play
the companies games. Although the platform, Project Z, will still have major ties to Facebook it is
[44]
believed to be the first major step away from the social media giant.
[edit]Studios and subsidiaries
Zynga has acquired many studios across the world.
[edit]Current
2
Zynga Headquarters (San Francisco). New 270,000 square feet (25,000 m ) headquarters under
[45]
renovation for occupancy in late 2011 at the site of former Segaoffices.
Zynga India (Bangalore, India)
[46]
Zynga Los Angeles – opened February 2010
Zynga China (formerly XPD Media, based in Beijing) – acquired May 2010
Zynga Austin (formerly Challenge Games) – acquired June 2010
Zynga Boston (formerly Conduit Labs) – acquired August 2010
Zynga Japan (formerly Unoh Games, based in Tokyo) – acquired August 2010
Zynga Germany (formerly Dextrose AG, based in Frankfurt) – acquired September 2010
Zynga Dallas (formerly Bonfire Studios) – acquired October 2010
Zynga with Friends (formerly Newtoy, Inc., based in McKinney, Texas) – acquired November,
2010
Zynga New York (formerly Area/Code) – acquired January 2011
[47]
Zynga Seattle – opened October 2010
Floodgate Entertainment – acquired March 2011
Zynga Toronto (formerly Five Mobile) specialized in mobile platforms - acquired July 2011
[edit]Controversies
This article's Criticism or Controversy section may compromise the article's neutral point
of view of the subject. Please integrate the section's contents into the article as a whole,
or rewrite the material; see the discussion on the talk page. (April 2010)
In its first years of existence, Zynga has been criticized on various fronts.
9. [edit]Spam concerns
Many of Zynga's games revolve around interacting with other players for in-game benefits. Many non-
players have notably complained about such communications created by those games that appear to
them as "spammy." Peter Jamison described Zynga's communications as a "deluge" of "unwanted
[48]
gifts or requests for neighborly 'help'". Facebook groups created to express displeasure regarding
[36]
overexposure of Zynga's games attracted millions of members. As a result of this, Facebook
modified their application developers policy to prevent applications from sending messages to news
[49][50]
feeds of friends or submitting updates to the notifications bar. Kotaku attributed the removal of
[51]
Facebook notifications to a decline of users of Zynga games in April and May 2010.
[edit]Game quality
Georgia Tech professor Ian Bogost criticized Zynga's apathy towards game aesthetics, comparing
[48]
that apathy to "strip-mining".
Critics like Nick Saint of Business Insider have said that Zynga's games have essentially the same
[50]
mechanics even though they have different premises and settings.
[edit]Replication of existing games
Zynga has been accused several times of copying game concepts of popular games by competing
[52][53]
developers.
[54]
The launch of Mafia Wars sparked a lawsuit from the makers of Mob Wars. An attorney for Psycho
Monkey, the creators of Mob Wars, said that in making Mafia Wars, Zynga "copied virtually every
[55] [56]
important aspect of the game." The suit was settled out of court for $7–9 million.
Ars Technica noted that Zynga's Cafe World and Playfish's Restaurant City were "nearly
identical"; Cafe World was released six months after Restaurant City. Its gameplay, design, graphics,
avatars, and even in-game items are almost identical to the ones in Restaurant City. Many players
who have played Restaurant City and Cafe World have noticed the extreme similarities between both
[57]
games. In addition, journalists have remarked that Zynga's FarmVille is similar to Farm Town, with
[48][55]
Peter Jamison calling it "uncannily similar."
In September 2010, SF Weekly reported that an employee recalled Mark Pincus advising him to "copy
[48]
what [Zynga's competitors] do and do it until you get their numbers."
Other companies have responded by copying Zynga's games as well. Playfish, publisher of Pet
Society (a game similar to Zynga's Petville), announced the creation of Poker Rivals to rival Zynga
[53]
Poker. Playfish then launched a game called Gangster City, which is similar to Mafia Wars.
Zynga founder Mark Pincus has dismissed the criticisms, saying that competing video game makers
[36]
have always released similar titles for each genre of game. The managing director of Lightspeed
Venture Partners said that creating similar competing games has "always been part of the game
[55]
industry."
[edit]Viability
Many journalists have questioned the viability of Zynga's business model. Ray Valdes questioned the
long-term prospects for Zynga, saying that it would be difficult for the company to make new titles to
[11]
replace old ones whose novelty is fading. In December 2009, Tadhg Kelly, writing for Gamasutra,
said that Zynga was at the "end of the beginning," noting that Zynga's business model is dependent
on Facebook continuing to operate in the same manner and users continuing to expect the same
10. quality of games, among others. Kelly also compared Zynga to Atari, which also churned out large
numbers of simple games prior to the North American video game crash of 1983and further claimed
that Zynga's approach of creating similar clones of popular games would be impossible for deeper
[58]
games. Tom Bollich, a former Zynga investor, said that it is impossible to make a cheap viral game,
[48]
and that retaining customers is difficult.
In an October 2011 article in The Wall Street Journal, Ben Levisohn said that Zynga has "issues that
could limit its upside," such as its dependence on Facebook and its reliance on a small percentage of
[59]
users and a small number of games for most of its revenue.
[edit]Scam ads
Through 2009 Zynga made money from lead generation advertising schemes, whereby game
participants would earn game points by signing up for featured credit cards or video-rental services.
These were criticized as being less cost-effective than simply buying game points, and in some
cases, being outright scams that would download unwanted software or unwittingly sign up for a
[36]
recurring subscription. One ad signed up players for subscriptions to expensive and unwanted text-
[37]
messaging services.
On October 31, 2009, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch said that Zynga intentionally worked with
[60]
scam advertisers, and that lead generation made up a third of Zynga's revenue. Arrington also
[61]
alleged that Facebook was complicit in this. On November 2, 2009, CEO Mark Pincus announced a
reform in its offers: Tatto Media, a major offer provider that enrolled users into recurring cell phone
subscriptions, would be banned, all mobile offers would be removed, and offer providers would be
[62]
required to pre-screen offers.
Arrington continued to question Pincus' role in the scams, republishing a video of a speech by
[63]
Pincus. In the speech, Pincus said:
So I funded [Zynga] myself but I did every horrible thing in the book to, just to get revenues right
away. I mean we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this Zwinky toolbar which was like, I
don't know, I downloaded it once and couldn‘t get rid of it. *laughs* We did anything possible just to
just get revenues so that we could grow and be a real business.
—Mark Pincus, Speech from Startup@Berkeley
In response, Pincus noted that after offering the Zwinky toolbar, his team of ten decided to remove it
[64]
since it was a "painful experience".
Several days after the Techcrunch story, Zynga's most recent Facebook game FishVille, was
temporarily taken offline by Facebook on claim of advertising violations. According to
Zynga, Fishville had 875,000 users within two days of launch. A release from Facebook on its
reasons for taking the game offline read that "FishVille will remain suspended until Facebook is
satisfied that Zynga demonstrates compliance with Facebook restrictions – as well as Zynga‘s own
[65]
restrictions – on the ads it offers users." FishVille was later un-suspended at midnight November 9–
[66]
10.
[67][68]
Several suits were filed against Zynga for promoting such offers, including the class-action
lawsuit Swift v. Zynga in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California for
violation of the Unfair competition law and the Consumers Legal Remedies Act, after the lead
11. plaintiff's credit card was billed more than $200 for offers she completed to
[69][70][71]
receive YoVille currency.
Pincus later said that he had been too eager to increase company revenues through advertising, and
that operating in reactive mode by taking down ads only after receiving complaints had not worked.
The company removed all ads for a time, relying only on direct purchase of game currency, then
[36]
began reintroducing third party ads only after they had been screened.
[edit]Other criticism
In September 2009 Zynga was threatened with legal action by Nissan for using their trademarks in the
game Street Racing. Zynga subsequently renamed and changed the thumbnail images of all cars that
[72]
were branded Nissan and Infiniti to "Sindats" and "Fujis" with the thumbnails changed. At the time
they also renamed and redesigned automobiles depicted as being made by GM, Ferrari, Lamborghini,
Saab, and others.
In March 2009, CEO Mark Pincus admitted that Zynga has been running gambling affiliate ads in their
[73]
Facebook games for a year.
In late May 2010, the Norwegian Consumer Council filed a complaint to the Data Inspectorate
[74]
regarding breaches of the Data Protection Act.
In August 2010, the San Francisco city attorney's office complained about the firm's guerrilla
marketing campaign for its Mafia Wars game that pasted fake money on city sidewalks, calling it
[75]
"vandalism".
[edit]Intellectual property
[76]
In October 2010, Zynga was criticized on Hacker News and other social media sites for having filed
[77]
a patent application relating to the ability to purchase virtual currency for cash on gambling and
other gaming sites. Commentators said that significant prior art exists for the concept.
In January 2011, Techdirt reported that Zynga had sent a cease and desist letter to Blingville alleging
trademark infringement for its use of the letters "ville" in the name of a proposed Facebook game.
[78]
Blingville has filed a suit for declaratory judgment that it is not infringing a Zynga trademark. As
reported in Gamasutra, Jay Monahan of Zynga responded by saying that Blingville's "[use] of the
name 'BlingVille' is an obvious attempt to capitalize on the fame and goodwill associated with Zynga's
[79]
family of 'ville' games which includes FarmVille and CityVille".
On May 20, 2011, it was reported that The Learning Company, owners of The Oregon
Trail trademark, filed a trademark infringement suit against Zynga, which is planning an "Oregon Trail"
[80]
expansion to FrontierVille. The Learning Company had previously contacted Zynga about an
[81]
Oregon Trail game on Facebook, but Zynga declined. On May 24, Games.com writer Brandy Shaul
wrote that Zynga was dropping the Oregon Trail name and soliciting new names for the
[82]
expansion. The name of the expansion is now "Pioneer Trail".
[edit]Funding
[83]
In December 2009, Russia's Digital Sky Technologies bought a $180 million share of Zynga.
[37]
In 2010, a combined $300 million from Softbank and Google were invested in Zynga.
More recently, Zynga has been rumored to be close to a deal that values the company at
approximately $10 billion through a capital raise from a group of investors that include mutual funds
12. associated with T. Rowe Price and Fidelity Investments. This round of funding would raise
[84]
$500 million in primary capital for the company.
[85]
In June 2011, The Wall Street Journal estimated Zynga's value at $19 billion.
[86]
Zynga has been identified as a possible candidate for an IPO by 2013. Equity analysts have stated
that their recent actions have made it clear they are preparing themselves for an IPO in the near
[84]
future. On May 24, 2011, AllThingsD.com reported that Zynga was planning to file for an IPO within
[87]
the week or two. By June 11, according to The Wall Street Journal, Zynga was in the process of
[85] [85]
finalizing its IPO offering. Zynga is planning to offer only 10% of its shares to the public.
On June 28, CNBC journalist Kate Kelly reported that Zynga would be filing Form S-1 as early as the
[58]
following day. The expected IPO would raise $1.5 billion to $2 billion.
On July 1, 2011, the company filed its Form S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and
[88]
Exchange Commission (SEC).
According to AdWeek, Zynga's IPO is currently scheduled for "mid- to late November"
[89]
2011. However, CNBC correspondent Julia Boorstin said that it is unlikely that Zynga's IPO will be
before Thanksgiving 2011 because its amended Form S-1 reflecting the third quarter does not
[90]
mention a stock price.
[edit]Games
Adventure World Pathwords
Blackjack PetVille
CastleVille (unreleased) The Pioneer Trail (formerly known as FrontierVille)
Café World Scramble (also known as Word Scramble)
Chess with Friends Scramble Live
CityVille Sudoku
CityVille Hometown Texas HoldEm Poker (also known as Zynga Poker)
Dream Zoo Treasure Isle
Drop 7 Vampire Wars
Empires & Allies Vampires: Bloodlust
FarmVille WarStorm
FarmVille Mobile Word Twist
FishVille Words with Friends
Hanging with Friends Yakuza Lords
Hidden Chronicles (unreleased) YoVille
Live Poker Zynga Bingo (unreleased)
Mafia Wars
Mafia Wars 2
[edit]Games discontinued
Attack!
13. Dope Wars
Dragon Wars
Fashion Wars
Football
Gang Wars
Ghost Racer
Guild of Heroes
Heroes vs. Villains
Music Pets
My Heroes Ability
Pirates: Rule the Caribbean!
Ponzi Inc.
Prison Lockdown
Roller Coaster Kingdom
Space Wars
Special Forces
[91]
Street Racing
Triumph
It Girl
Poker Blitz
[edit]Zynga.org
Zynga started a charity sister company, Zynga.org, in charge of incorporating charitable contributions
[92]
into its games. Zynga.org has raised more than $10 million for several international nonprofits.
For example, since at least October 2009, through its game FarmVille, Zynga offered special sugar
beets which customers can purchase with real-world money. Proceeds from the donation go to two
Haiti-based charities: FATEM.org and FONKOZE.org. By October 20, the sugar beet promotion had
[93][94]
raised $427,000 and was expected to raise $2 million by year's end. Zynga used tie-ins via three
[95]
of its top games to raise money for relief of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Zynga offers
special bulldogs in YoVille, the proceeds going to the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of
[96][97]
Cruelty to Animals.
[98]
In January 2010, Zynga.org raised $1.5 million for Haiti Earthquake Relief. In September 2010,
Zynga.org raised $500,000 in two days for L‘Ecole de Choix, a K-12 school Zynga is building in
[99]
Mirebalais, Haiti. In addition, in December 2010 Zynga raised over $800,000 for the UCSF Benioff
[100]
Children‘s Hospital, as part of the UCSF Challenge for the Children competition.
On March 11, 2011, Zynga announced that 100% of proceeds from purchases of virtual goods in
more than seven of its games would go to Japan's Save the ChildrenEarthquake Emergency
[101][102] [103]
Fund. Virtual goods included daikon in Farmville. On March 15, 2011, Zynga offered the
purchase of a "Japanese Countryside Home" in Yoville, also stating that 100% of proceeds would go
[104]
to Save the Children. The company had been criticized in the past for keeping up to 50% of the
[31]
donations it collected.
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19. [edit]External links
San Francisco Bay Area portal
Companies portal
Official Zynga website
United States Securities and Exchange Commission Form S-1 Registration Statement
Mafia Wars vs Mob Wars
Webby Nominees (Mafia Wars)
Gross, Doug. The Facebook games that millions love (and hate) – CNN – February 23, 2010
Google Secretly Invested $100+ Million In Zynga, Preparing To Launch Google Games
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