Zynga's mobile efforts have officially been tripled in the past few months, and it's all thanks to a little developer called Area/Code. The New York-based studio, essentially gave the company one finished mobile game just by signing the paperwork, Drop7. Last week, the company rereleased the critically acclaimed game under the Zynga name in both a free and premium, ad-free version for $2.99.
This sounds familiar: Didn't Zynga do the exact same thing with Newtoy, McKinney, Texas-based studio that offered Zynga a finished, successful mobile game in Words With Friends? After connecting the dots, you can already see what Mark Pincus and his crew are up to.
While Zynga has developed some mobile games to mild reception (even FarmVille just recently hit the Top Grossing App Store charts after a Farm Cash sale), these existing properties will bring more financial success on mobile to Zynga. For instance, Words with Friends sits comfortably at Number 8 on the Top Free charts just above--wait for it--Facebook itself. Not to mention it's in the same position on the Top Paid chart. Just think of all that money falling to Zynga's pockets at little to no development cost.
The same thing is underway with Drop7, whose premium version was available for free all this weekend. While it's not yet on the charts, Zynga could very well take its newfound game to the top thanks to all the cash saved in, well, making the game. While the company is certainly capable of creating a mobile game, it looks as if the company is working another strategy to make some coin off of Apple's magic devices: ride already successful mobile properties from recently acquired companies. Sure, that will rake in the dollars, but what happens next?
Words With FriendsEven Zynga can't go on for much longer just gobbling up every popular iPhone game developer there is and rereleasing their work. There has to be a self-sustained plan, and one is plain as day. Zynga will continue to develop mobile games both internally and through its many satellites, because it has the money and exposure to do so. Both Words With Friends and Drop7 have ad-supported, free versions. Did the lightbulb go off yet? Zynga could simply just advertise and cross promote its existing and future original games through already successful games like Drop7.
Out of the company's 11 recent buyouts, both Area/Code and Newtoy have to be the most clever. While I don't get paid six figures to map out product strategies, you can bet that Zynga is already working on this idea after some suit thought it up months ago. But now Zynga has enough money and notoriety in the App Store to probably beat Angry Birds from its perch at the top. Now, it's time to bring on the original games.
[Image Credits: TipRadar and MCV]
Have you tried either Words with Friends or Drop7 yet? What do you think of Zynga's potential to dominate the mobile gaming space thanks to these games?
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