Zynga Founder Pincus: Creating Google In The Game World

Zynga is a well-known social networking game developer in the United States. Its ambitious ambition makes the training of new employees an exciting thing, all of which comes from the founder of Zynga, Mark Pincus.

In recent training sessions for new employees, Pincus said that Zynga has embarked on creating an eternal Internet brand, which is a fun process.

"The current Internet situation is no longer the same, not just garage sales, bookstores," said Pincus.

Pincus said that the opportunity to build an online entertainment empire is just like the search market before Google was born.

So far, Pincus's plan seems to be proceeding step by step.

At present, Zynga is the most popular Silicon Valley start-up company after Facebook and Twitter.

But unlike Twitter's meager income, Zynga's revenue this year is expected to reach $500 million.

Facebook won 100 million users for 4 and a half years, while Zynga took 2 and a half years.

Revenue from virtual gifts

The entertainment empire of Zynga is made up of cartoon online games. What makes people look at each other is that the game is free of charge at the same time.

Zynga receives revenue from a virtual game of gifts purchased by a small number of game users. These virtual gifts can be used to upgrade games or to give friends.

For example, Zynga's most popular FarmVille game (similar to the happy farm in China) allows users to grow and harvest crops on land and turn a plain land into a large scale farm.

An excellent player can earn virtual currency through games to buy more seeds, animals and equipment.

Of course, players can also use credit cards, PayPal accounts or Facebook payment system Credits to purchase these items.

For example, buying a pink tractor costs US $3.5, and the fuel needs 60 cents.

A horse costs 4.4 dollars and 4 chickens 5.6 dollars.

Although the unit price looks small, Zynga has millions of users.

Zynga currently has nearly 1000 employees, and there are about 400 vacancies, compared with just 375 a year ago.

Zynga investors, including Google and Netscape, have invested $520 million.

Although some of these funds are used to acquire shares of early investors, the investment is still huge in Silicon Valley.

Zynga is currently valued at more than $4 billion 500 million, and founder Pincus is likely to become the next billionaire in Silicon Valley.

Not only in Silicon Valley, Pincus's reputation has long been known in the industry.

"If I want to start a business, I want to be a Pincus," Jeffrey Katzenberg Katzenberg, CEO Jeffrey, said at an industry conference. "He grabbed the next killer app."

Encounter challenges

Of course, Pincus's road to success is not smooth sailing.

For FarmVille games, when a task is completed, such as planting or harvesting crops, updates will be sent to friends of the players.

However, due to too frequent notification, 6 million Facebook user signatures are opposed.

So Facebook began to restrict these messages, which led to a sharp decline in Zynga traffic.

Data show that the number of FarmVille users decreased from 83 million in March to 61 million in July, a drop of 26%.

But Pincus said he hopes to regain traffic through the new game FrontierVille.

Zynga investors say that the drop in traffic has little impact on the company's revenue, because some of the customers who do not usually buy virtual gifts.

Nevertheless, in the face of fierce market competition, some analysts and investors are still worried about Zynga's continued game development capability.

Rick Heitzmann, manager of FirstMark Capital, New York venture capital fund, believes that Zynga has already had pets, farms, restaurants and other categories of games, and there will be limited room for expansion in the future. Rick Heitzmann

Has 211 million gamers.

But so far, Zynga's performance has been satisfactory.

Research firm AppData.com data show that Zynga has 211 million gamers a month.

Although the figure contains the number of players per game, the number of users is still 3 times higher than that of the nearest competitor, EA.

Playdom ranked third and the number of users was 41 million.

Alena Mikel, a 32 year old San Francisco financial analyst, said: "my job is very stressful and I like to relax through games." Alena, Meeker,

Mikel is playing Zynga games, about 1 hours a day, spending $20 to $40 a week on virtual gifts.

Nathan Sleet (Nathan R. Van Sleet) in Oakland, California, is an unemployed youth who plays YoVille games for 16 hours a day.

YoVille allows users to create avatars and interact with other players.

Pincus also said that in addition to

Zynga's popularity has also threatened traditional game vendors.

In November last year, EA bought Zynga rival Playfish for $400 million.

But industry analysts still believe that in the social networking game market, traditional game firms are already lagging behind.

Michael Paquette, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, a securities firm, said: "the only thing that can catch up with the trend is EA". (Michael Pachter)

Pincus

According to the Silicon Valley standard, a new Internet Kingdom founder is usually more than 20 years old, such as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (Mark Zuckerberg), Google co founder Larry Paige (Larry Page) and Sergi Brin (Sergey Brin), while Ping Ping Cass, 44, appears to be a late bloomer.

Jeans, T-Shirts, and Pincus are easy to mingle with ordinary employees.

Pinus has created a series of companies.

The first was Internet Broadcasting Company Freeloader, which sold second companies Support.com after selling for $38 million.

Although there are already many mansions and private aircraft, 5 years later, Pincus created third companies, social networking site Tribe.net, but later failed.

Until Zynga, Pincus thought he had found the way and got what he should get.

At the same time, Pincus is also regarded as a business leader with strategic vision.

But Pincus was very casual in his clothes, and he often talked about his dismissal by a Consultation Service Co.

Pincus did not believe venture capitalists did not want to be their poor object.

"We have already made profits before financing," he said.

In this way, when negotiating with investors, they are on an equal footing, rather than their employees. "

Pincus also blocked a partner of Support.com from attending the meeting because he did not bring any value to the company.

Also rejected a Silicon Valley company's investment in Zynga.

Today, Zynga is already famous, and Pincus's pride has also emerged.

At an industry conference last year, Pincus said, "I know I want to control my own destiny, so I choose to start my own business."

Encountering moral crisis

Some comments by Pincus are dissatisfied with bloggers, especially when Zynga inserts deceptive advertisements in games.

TechCrunch, a well-known technology blogger website, called it "ScamVille", while some users initiated class action.

Today, Zynga has removed advertising, and Pincus said he was misled.

"This has nothing to do with moral issues," Pincus said.

Previously, users believed that Zynga's move lacked moral standards.

"Because of the success of Zynga, I must realize that many people are concerned about what I have said," Pincus said.

Tension with Facebook

At present, Zynga is the most successful application developer on Facebook, but the relationship between the two companies is becoming more and more complex.

Zynga traffic has declined because of the notification system.

Facebook has recently indicated that all future applications will use virtual currency Credits and extract 30% revenue.

This brought tension to the two companies, but eased in May this year, signing a 5 year Zynga game using Credits.

Ethan Beard Beard, head of Facebook platform, admitted that the relationship between the two companies was tense for a while, but the current partnership was "fairly stable" in Ethan.

However, there are still some analysts who believe that because of the shift of balance of power, the two companies may have more frictions in the future.

Wedbush Securities analyst Peter gage said: "most people think that without the game, Facebook will become an empty shell.

I don't think so. The Facebook users who play games only account for 20% to 30%.

Of course, Zynga will not put all eggs in one basket.

Recently, Zynga signed a cooperation agreement with YAHOO to popularize games to millions of YAHOO users.

In addition, Zynga is also working with apple to provide FarmVille games for iPhone users.

In addition, a person familiar with the matter said that Zynga also negotiated with Google.

When Pincus first proposed the Zynga business plan, many investors and peers suspected that the game would be so popular, but the success of FarmVille broke the industry's doubts.

John Toure, partner of Vc firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, said: "in the venture companies we invested in, Zynga is the most profitable and fastest growing enterprise in three years."