Advanced Strategic Management: Zynga
Advanced Strategic Management
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This report is an assignment of the Advanced Strategic Management course taught by Professor Andrei Vilarroel. The report consists in an assessment of the sources of competitive advantage on the giant gaming company Zynga.
The initial hypothesis we proposed are: Simplicity of the games offered; Accessibility of the games offered, focusing on the platform; and the social component that the games provide. The scope of our analysis is not only the social gaming industry; instead we assessed Zynga in the whole gaming industry context. The purpose of this analysis is not only to determine why Zynga is the best in social gaming but instead try to explain the roots of its success to comprehend the success of Social Gaming vs Traditional Gaming. Company’s Background
Zynga is now a private company, created by Mark Pincus, Scott Sale and Kyle Stewart in January 2007 as a social network game developer. With headquarters in San Francisco, California (U.S.A), it has started its operations in April.
Over the years, the company has launched a lot of games that quickly reached the top leading position in the social gaming industry.
Zynga Poker (July 2007), was the first social game developed by the company, being the largest free-to-play online poker game in the world. It was available for platforms such as Facebook, Myspace, Yahoo!, Google Android and Apple iOS and with MAUs (monthly average users) of 35 million, it is the fourth most popular game on Facebook.
Other games (Exhibit 1) were introduced during the last years including Mafia Wars (June 2008), FarmVille (June 2009), Treasure Isle (April 2010), Frontier Ville (June 2010), Words With Friends (November 2010), CityVille (December 2010), Empires & Allies (June 2011), and many others.
CityVille is the largest game on Facebook (MAUs: 70 million) consistent with AppData, followed by Farmville with an average of 37 million monthly active users. Both games are on Facebook and iOS
Page 1
This report is an assignment of the Advanced Strategic Management course taught by Professor Andrei Vilarroel. The report consists in an assessment of the sources of competitive advantage on the giant gaming company Zynga.
The initial hypothesis we proposed are: Simplicity of the games offered; Accessibility of the games offered, focusing on the platform; and the social component that the games provide. The scope of our analysis is not only the social gaming industry; instead we assessed Zynga in the whole gaming industry context. The purpose of this analysis is not only to determine why Zynga is the best in social gaming but instead try to explain the roots of its success to comprehend the success of Social Gaming vs Traditional Gaming. Company’s Background
Zynga is now a private company, created by Mark Pincus, Scott Sale and Kyle Stewart in January 2007 as a social network game developer. With headquarters in San Francisco, California (U.S.A), it has started its operations in April.
Over the years, the company has launched a lot of games that quickly reached the top leading position in the social gaming industry.
Zynga Poker (July 2007), was the first social game developed by the company, being the largest free-to-play online poker game in the world. It was available for platforms such as Facebook, Myspace, Yahoo!, Google Android and Apple iOS and with MAUs (monthly average users) of 35 million, it is the fourth most popular game on Facebook.
Other games (Exhibit 1) were introduced during the last years including Mafia Wars (June 2008), FarmVille (June 2009), Treasure Isle (April 2010), Frontier Ville (June 2010), Words With Friends (November 2010), CityVille (December 2010), Empires & Allies (June 2011), and many others.
CityVille is the largest game on Facebook (MAUs: 70 million) consistent with AppData, followed by Farmville with an average of 37 million monthly active users. Both games are on Facebook and iOS