14 DAY TRIAL // Social game developer Zynga has announced better than expected financial reports for its first quarter as a publicly traded company, saying that for the three months that ended on December 31 of last year it has managed to get a revenue of 311 million dollars (236.12 million Euro), slightly above the expectations of the market.
The company also reported a loss of 435 million dollars (330.2 million Euro) during the same period, but this was exclusively because of compensation that Zynga needed to pay to its own employees after it went public.
During the fourth quarter Zynga reported having 54 million unique users, a 13 percent increase over the same period of 2010, while the number of payers has also gone up by the same percentage to reach 2.9 million.
Recently, Facebook has revealed that 12 percent of its own revenue is linked to the video games that Zynga publishes.
John Schappert, chief operating officer at Zynga, stated when the financial announcements were made that “Social gaming is still very early, and mobile gaming -- despite its success and its growth -- is still very early, and great games drive the audience. They bring new people in… so we like and welcome competition.”
He added, “With respect to us and core gamers, our goal is to deliver the leading games in every major category of play.”
It is not clear whether this means that Zynga is actually thinking of bringing some of its titles to handhelds or even core consoles or whether the company simply plans to bring the hardcore audience over to Facebook and engage it with familiar mechanics.
Schappert has said that it has nothing concrete to announce at the moment.
Analysts have expressed reservations over the long-term prospects of Zynga, noting that the company spends more money to attract new players than it then gets from payments.