Zynga CEO: Playfish Helps EA ‘Catch Up’
Posted on November 10, 2009 |
Mark Pincus has become the poster boy for the booming business of social online games. His company, Zynga, brings in more than $100 million in annual revenues, and owns the most popular Facebook app of the year, FarmVille. Zynga is even considered by analysts and observers to be a candidate to go public next year.
So what does Pincus make of video game stalwart Electronic Arts recently scooping up Playfish, one of Zynga's top rivals, in a deal that's worth up to $400 million? He says EA paid a justifiably high price to enter the social gaming space. "The founders got a really good cashout, and EA got to catch up to a business that they had kind of missed the start of," Pincus says.
Zynga may benefit indirectly from the marriage, since EA marketing savvy could bring more attention to the social gaming space, he says.
Pincus isn't worried about Playfish's newfound access to more capital making it a stronger competitor. But he admits that EA's popular game brands including The Sims and Madden have a lot of potential in the social gaming space. "There’s a good chance for them to try to leverage EA’s major brands and take Sims and other [games] into the market," he says. This could be a "risk" for Zynga and others that don't have a stable of recognizable game franchises to draw on, Pincus says.
