News Byte

King Touts Latest Gaming Numbers: 70 Million Daily Players, 21 Billion Games Played Per Month

On the back of its hit Facebook/mobile game Candy Crush Saga, casual game studio King said in a press release that it has crossed the 70 million mark in daily active players across all platforms. That puts it within striking distance of Zynga’s all-time quarterly peak of 72 million daily active users (achieved in Q2 2012), and well beyond that competitor’s latest quarterly total of 52 million DAU, as reported last month. The company also said that its cross-platform games are now being played more than 21 billion times per month.

News Byte

Hedge Fund Investment Pulls Zynga, Groupon Shares Out of the Weeds

Zynga and Groupon shares shot up 7 percent and 5 percent, respectively, on news of an investment from hedge fund Jana Partners, first reported by Reuters earlier this morning. The long-term picture of both companies’ stock prices has been less than rosy. After peaking in March 2012 at close to $15 per share, Zynga hasn’t risen above the $5 threshold in nearly a year. Meanwhile, Groupon has similarly remained below $10 per share in the same time frame, peaking shortly after its November IPO close to $26 per share.

Facebook Racks Up Record Games Revenue, Even as Zynga Presence Wanes

“Q1 represented our largest three-month quarter of games revenue to date despite a 37 percent drop in year-over-year payments volume from our largest developer.” Largest developer … Gee, I wonder who that might be.
castleville

Growth, Mobile and More: Facebook’s First-Quarter Earnings

Hopefully Zuck wants to talk about the explosive growth in mobile ad revenue.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the Facebook Home launch event.

Zynga Beats by a Nickel as Monthly Users Decline

It’s a slim beat for the social gaming company, but the biggest issue is how many users the company is losing quarter after quarter.
zynga_HQ_outdoors

All Eyes Still on Mobile as Zynga Earnings Approach

Is Zynga’s long, slow transition to mobile going smoothly?
zynga_money

Twitter Music Is Here Today, and You Can’t Use It

Unless you’re famous.
ryan_seacrest

CEOville

I thought of myself as C.E.O. at every company I was at. Not many companies are set up so people low in the hierarchy can challenge everything like a C.E.O.

– Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, explaining to the New York Times’ Andrew Goldman why he got fired so often

Zynga Snags Analyst to Be VP of Finance