Zynga buying 80% of SGG - STAFF RESPONSE POST 27 & 111

I appreciate the reply @mhalttu… It is what I & perhaps other players needed to hear. I’m glad you all took the time not only to analyze things before making the decision, but to also make time to reply to us die hard fans…

8 Likes

I loved my SAAB 900 convertible. But in 2015 two things happened… 1) my SAAB repairman closed his shop for good, and 2) the transmission went out. Probably the most fun car I’ve ever had, although driving stick in San Francisco isn’t fun.

1 Like

I played Words With Friends during the Zynga acquisition. They sure ruined that game for me. Intrusive pop-up screens, ridiculous numbers of awards and daily goals resulting in ridiculous numbers of unusable, tiny prizes. I sure hope they don’t ruin this game, too.

1 Like

Wow
You are the most person who got replaied by @mhalttu
You @SG13
You will be a favor player soon xD

1 Like

Hope you write your independency in the deal contract - so you can appeal to something, because usually sellers opinion is worthless after deal is closed.

Because I saw many deals in a game world and outside of it when good thing after deal slowly or faster turned to completely useless and bad thing.

Hope your deal is exception from this.

1 Like

I’ve been a part of companies getting bought out a few times. Usually very little changes from the product. It sounds like they’re getting bought out because they’re doing something right. Zynga likely wants to piggy back on that, along with the potential larger exposure the bigger company can bring.

The real changes tend to be on the personnel front, doing more with less, and inter-operations. None of which we as consumers should feel the effects of.

2 Likes

Usually big companies works on targets and budgets.

So as long as the original team reach the money quota zynga as make for them, i guess they just leave them work as they always do.

The trouble is that usually if you reach your target the next one probably would be higher.
And then higher, higher, and higher again, and that’s what can bring trouble in the long run.

4 Likes

Bingo. It’s like a video game with targets, every target is tougher. “You beat this level, so next level you’ll have to do so without ‘this’ department and less funding.”

I have already found a new game and am just going through the motions on this now. Regardless of what anyone says, the end result will be the same. As I said before, Zynga is a publicly traded company, 80% owned by institutional investors, which I doubt are big time game players.

1 Like

I certainly hope that remains to be true in the future.

1 Like

Let’s all just relax and play the game until we see what happens, getting all worked up over what might happen is just going to guarantee a bad experience.

3 Likes

Is it true that Zynga bought the game Empires & Puzzles for 80% of the stock for 560 million?
If so, what does that mean for us VIP players?
Does it bring or disadvantages with it?

Thank you for your answer!

Sincerely
Nihat

Yes it’s true. Extensie discussion about it here:

No any real info on the concrete changes this will bring. Our dear mhalttu is saying nothing will change in the thread I linked.

1 Like

I think they’ve already squeezed as much money as they can out of this game. Thats why they sold it. I’ll wait and see what will happen. In the meantime I not gonna put any money into it.

1 Like

SMALL GIANT GAMES

Zynga buys empires & puzzles for $ 560 million
The Finnish developer Studio Small Giant Games has so far published only one successful mobile game with Empires & Puzzles. Nevertheless, the US publisher Zynga puts $ 560 million for a company share of initially 80 percent on the table.
Californian game maker Zynga has announced plans to buy Small Giant Games, a developer based in Finland’s capital city of Helsinki. The studio is behind an Android and iOS downloadable mobile game called Empires & Puzzles: RPG Quest - other games are currently not available.

The acquisition is expected to be completed at the beginning of January 2019. First, Zynga buys about 80 percent of the shares of Small Giant Games for around $ 560 million, of which $ 330 is due to pay, the remainder of $ 230 million is paid in Zynga shares. The remaining 20 percent of Small Giant Games will be gradually taken over the next three years, the price depends on the profits achieved in the meantime.

The money should go primarily to the founders who opened Small Giant Games in 2013. The studio should continue to work independently. Among other things, it is currently busy developing new games. Zynga boss Frank Gibeau - formerly chief executive at Electronic Arts - explains the takeover as “the quality and dynamics of empires & puzzles”. He sees one of the strengths of Empires & Puzzles is that it “appeals to players” in the long term, and wants to create “Small Giant Games” the next phase of growth.
Released in early 2017, the Empires & Puzzles uniquely combine building strategy with role-playing elements and 3-in-a-row puzzles. Overall, the title is good for the players, but as with many free-to-play games, there is a lot of criticism for expensive in-app purchases. The ingame currency Jewels costs from around 5.50 euros - without this in-game currency progress is slow.

The listed company Zynga currently employs around 1,700 white-collar workers after several changes of strategy and earns its money with mobile games based on poker and solitaire.

1 Like

As an early investor in Zynga since their IPO I’ve followed their ups and downs for many years. For sure I can say that they spent most of their cash balance on this acquisition. This tells me that they are all in. It is either going to be for good or for worse but expect big changes coming in the near future. There will be both new ways to monetize players and also free options for FTP but expect big changes.

3 Likes

The IPO price was $10 now its $4 not a great investment

Mafia wars ring any bells. Played it on facebook for a long time until Zynga killed it along with a few other games.

1 Like

@Deepriver

Rings many bells

Couldn’t agree with you more! Zynga did the exact same thing to Dawn of Titans, which was an excellent game before Zynga got their hooks into the mix! Only took about 2 months for that game to all but disintegrate. Most of the older players have left or just hang around for s&g’s.