Announced yesterday, social gaming giant Zynga has acquired Facebook social games developer Serious Business. This announcement arrives hot on the heels of Zynga’s recent announcement of the opening of a Los Angeles development studio.
Based in San Francisco, Serious Business was one of the first social games companies on the Facebook scene, and is most noted for their “Friends for Sale” title. The acquisition hails a major experience and knowhow intake for Zynga, as Serious Business has 32 people on staff, 20 of which are new hires added in Q4 of 2009. As is normal with an acquisition like this, the terms of the deal were undisclosed.
“We’re very excited to gain an experienced team that is committed to building social games,” said Vish Makhijani, chief operating officer at Zynga. “We are impressed with Serious Business’ entrepreneurial attitude, speed, and innovation in developing social games and welcome them to our team.”
Serious Business reports that they’ve been profitable since the beginning of this year, drawing 90% of their revenue through the microtransaction based sales of virtual goods. Obviously, a good fit in the Zynga family. However, this acquisition isn’t without precedent, as Zynga acquired GoPets back in October, only to shut it down a few weeks later. Given “Friends for Sale”’s longevity and place in the social gaming scene, it would be unlikely for Zynga to go for a repeat on this one. In this case, it should be interesting to see what and how Zynga will incorporate Serious Business’ ideas, methodology, and technology.
The majority of sales were driven by their popular titles Baseball Superstars, RPG title Zenonia, and action RPG Hybrid: Eternal Whisper. These titles are available on both standard and iPhone mobile devices. Gamevil points to not only the success of these titles, but more importantly, their microtransaction sales within these games as primary revenue drivers. However, while Gamevil has employed the microtransaction monetization module in their standard mobile phone apps, they’ve yet to make the same jump with their iPhone games. Let’s say that again – Gamevil has pulled down record profits, and is NOT garnering significant profits from iPhone based microtransactions.
I-play’s VP of Sales and Marketing for mobile, Keith Adair states that Android does have a distinct advantage over other (read:iPhone) smartphones currently on the market, in that, “not only can game be distributed via Google’s Android Market, but increasingly carriers will launch their own portals on the platform, enabling a second point of distribution.” He further establishes that each individual carrier is still defining their Android strategy, these distribution channels will give long-established mobile developers an advantage, as they’re likely to take advantage of existing operator contacts.
This past Sunday, Jon “NEVERDIE” Jacobs put his virtual egg up for public auction. The winning bid was placed by David “Deathifier” Storey. The Atrox Queen Egg is not a new addition to the virtual economy, as NEVERDIE originally purchased the egg in 2006 for $10,000 from a player who had received it as loot from a completed quest. However, the story of the egg doesn’t end here, as according to Planet Calypso, eggs are bound to hatch, and thousands of players are now left speculating if the outcome will be worth the high price tag. In other words, is Deathifier set to double his investment, or, quite literally end up with egg on his face.
Additionally, Riot Games took this occasion to announce that these 1 million League of Legends players have spent over 18 million hours in the game. On a daily basis, more than 150,000 players in North America and Europe compete in League of Legends.
In multiple recruitment ads for the new studio, Zynga is looking for “all-star Flash developers,” as well as product managers and IT engineers. This continued growth and expansion for FarmVille creator Zynga only serves as further proof that while the current economic situation might be forcing other studios to lay off staff members, or shut down studios altogether, social gaming has a promising future.
Currently, the site supports a number of virtual worlds, including popular online titles such as World of Warcraft and EVE Online, and according to Linden Labs CEO Mark Kingdon, they will continue to do so. “We’re committed to keeping this ideal of a place where avatars from multiple worlds and games can come together.”
