Items tagged with Farmville
After more than a decade, the original FarmVille game that put developer Zynga on the map is shutting down for good. The reason? It is an Adobe Flash-based title, and with Adobe officially ending support for its Flash Player today, FarmVille becomes an optional casualty. I say "optional" because Zynga could have ported it to HTML5, but has decided not to do that. Zynga co-founder and chairman Mark Pincus posted a memorial of sorts to FarmVille on Twitter, explaining how it was created and the role it played in the "evolution of gaming," from his perspective. "The real innovation of FarmVille was in making games accessible to busy adults, giving them a place to invest and express themselves and...
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There are certain headlines you don't expect to see on a regular basis. "BMW Executives Prefer Driving Kia." "Ryan Gosling Weds Dowdy, Middle-Aged Housewife." "Game Industry Leaders Agree: Industry Peaked With Colecovision." Or, in this case: "Microsoft Entertainment Head Don Mattrick Leaves For Zynga." This is clearly fallout from the disastrous debut of the Xbone at Microsoft's unveil in May, the used game lockout, throwing military gamers under a bus at E3, and the $100 price premium compared to the PS4. Toss in the terrible way Microsoft communicated on virtually all these points and it's hard to find much good to say about the man's performance. Even the pivot of several weeks ago,...
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Zynga's wildly popular Farmville franchise is headed to your TV. Well, maybe not your television, unless you're a parent of young children, in which case the animated series will inevitably find a way into your home and make you yearn for the days of Tom & Jerry and Looney Tunes. Ah, memories. In any event, The Wall Street Journal reports that director Brett Ratner will produce a half-hour animated series based on Farmville, while also serving as executive producer alongside Kirk Schenck and Charles Bishop. A Miami Beach native, Ratner's resume includes Money Talks, Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2, Rush Hour 3, Tower Heist, and X-Men: The Last Stand, all of which he directed. Ratner was also a producer...
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It's a little bit ironic that Zynga is having a tough time adjusting to mobile. Or perhaps it's fitting. Like Facebook, the social platform that was so pivotal in fueling its success, Zynga hasn't been doing so hot as a publicly trade company. Just a few days ago, Zynga warned that it expects to post a net loss of between $90 million and $105 million for its third quarter ended September 30, 2012. The company also lowered its full year outlook to reflect preliminary third quarter results and to reflect the "challenging" times. "The third quarter of 2012 continued to be challenging and, while many of our games performed to plan, as a whole we did not execute to our satisfaction," said Mark Pincus,...
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Zynga, the online gaming company responsible for Farmville and other Facebook games that once littered your social networking wall with dorky updates, is the latest tech company to file for a ridiculously large IPO. How large, you ask? Just in case you thought that's a typo in the title, it's not; Zynga really and truly expects to raise $1 billion. Don't be surprised if it does. Citing people briefed on the matter, the New York Times is reporting that Zynga will likely offer up 10 percent of its shares at a valuation near or above $20 billion. Morgan Stanley will lead the offering, with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America Merill Lynch, Allen & Company, and Barclays Capital also...
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