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Looks Like Zynga Just Bought OMGPOP For $200 Million

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Re: Looks Like Zynga Just Bought OMGPOP For $200 Million

#121

Post by anatari »

dkrich wrote: post #105
smackfu wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say "electronic version of Pictionary that was released six weeks ago." I say "#1 paid, free, and top grossing iOS app, 12 million active users"."

Great. Would you pay $200mm for a game that was released a little over a month ago? It seems to me that money has no value in Silicon Valley. We've seen this story play out before, but I guess we'll need another bubble to clean out the rest of the suckers.

Yes, I would pay $200mm for a game that nets $250k/day or $91.25mm/year. Assuming Zynga does nothing but maintain the revenue, it will make back it's investment in a little over 2 years. How many investments opportunities are out there that net you a ~40% yield!? Of course there is risk with an investment like this, but this is after all, their core business and they are probably very good at mitigating those risks.

Re: Looks Like Zynga Just Bought OMGPOP For $200 Million

#122

Post by robryan »

dkrich wrote: post #105
smackfu wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say "electronic version of Pictionary that was released six weeks ago." I say "#1 paid, free, and top grossing iOS app, 12 million active users"."

Great. Would you pay $200mm for a game that was released a little over a month ago? It seems to me that money has no value in Silicon Valley. We've seen this story play out before, but I guess we'll need another bubble to clean out the rest of the suckers.

Would should they be spending their money on? I would look at is as user acquisition to, Zynga will quickly have their box in the app cross promoting their other apps.

Re: Looks Like Zynga Just Bought OMGPOP For $200 Million

#123

Post by reinhardt »

dkrich wrote: post #105
smackfu wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say "electronic version of Pictionary that was released six weeks ago." I say "#1 paid, free, and top grossing iOS app, 12 million active users"."

Great. Would you pay $200mm for a game that was released a little over a month ago? It seems to me that money has no value in Silicon Valley. We've seen this story play out before, but I guess we'll need another bubble to clean out the rest of the suckers.

This may well be part of a bubble but what does the release date have to do with it?

Re: Looks Like Zynga Just Bought OMGPOP For $200 Million

#124

Post by dc-tech-fan »

snsr wrote: post #120
dc-tech-fan wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try Doodle or Die – it’s independently run by four random guys (disclaimer: i’m one of them). It’s more like Telephone than Pictionary. Much more freedom and the results are hilarious. http://doodleordie.com

Just tried Doodle or Die for the first time - it's a riot! You guys are doing fantastic work. I dug up my wacom for the first time in years. Do you have any plans to support mobile safari? Would be fantastic on an ipad (or any tablet for that matter.)

Thank you!

We are actually working on improving Doodle or Die for mobile safari right now.

Re: Looks Like Zynga Just Bought OMGPOP For $200 Million

#125

Post by jedc »

pinkton wrote: post #74
jedc wrote: post #30

That rivals the Heroku for the biggest YC exit so far! (Heroku was ~$212million) OMGPOP would slot in at #2. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkkhSN3vaY4jdF9... This likely means YC gets about $3-5million out of the deal, funding even more startups in the future. :) (edit: Originally wrote Flightcaster for some reason; meant Heroku. Was thinking of Flightcaster earlier today and got confused.)

> This likely means YC gets about $3-5million out of the deal, funding even more startups in the future. :) I'm fairly sure that YC doesn't recycle the money off from wins, but instead returns it to their investors. YC is a for-profit fund that uses other people's money to give about $20k cash and $20k of training in exchange for 6% of their company.

When I wrote that I didn't mean it in a strict accounting sense, but in a holistic sense. ie, I don't see PG and Jessica buying a yacht with their YC earnings, but I can see them plowing the earnings back into the program. :)

Re: Looks Like Zynga Just Bought OMGPOP For $200 Million

#126

Post by dinkumthinkum »

citricsquid wrote: post #3
beatle wrote: post #2

amazing. everyone i know loves draw something. congratulations.

I think it's got a winning formula, whether or not it was intentional or an accident I don't know, but it does so many things right. It caters to casual players (I can pick it up, guess, draw and put it down) or hardcore players (draw + guess all day and all night), it forces people to provide value back to the player they're against (after guessing you have to draw to play another game) and it has a good micro trans…

I actually don't really get the game that much. I've played, it's kind of fun, but half the time people can't figure out how to draw the subject and just write it out ... literally, this happens about 1/4 of the time. But kudos to them for their success. I do question the $200 million and I can only imagine, as another user said, Zynga would try to transition users to their other games in the long term.

Re: Looks Like Zynga Just Bought OMGPOP For $200 Million

#127

Post by dinkumthinkum »

wilfra wrote: post #37

"it has recently been netting around $250,000 a day from the game — that’s after Apple takes its 30 percent cut." $7.5 million a month at the very beginning of their hockey stick growth, and they are willing to sell for $200 million? Deal of the century for Zynga... They should have leveraged this into a massive funding round and started making acquisitions, growing etc. Nobody is ever going to compete with Zynga if…

I just can't agree with you. Not selling could have been a big gamble in about 8 months if the fad cools down. I think it's a gamble for Zynga as well but they have the pockets to make such a gamble. The OMGPOP team has been around for awhile and have not had great success so I get it.

Re: Looks Like Zynga Just Bought OMGPOP For $200 Million

#128

Post by davidwparker »

dc-tech-fan wrote: post #96
untog wrote: post #10

Kind of sad. I mean, congratulations to OMGPOP, but I'd really like to see a decent competitor to Zynga out there. Their games are slow, buggy and overly instrusive, but no other company has the kind of traction they do. OMGPOP could have taken the hard route and built themselves up from the success of Draw Something. Oh well.

Try Doodle or Die – it’s independently run by four random guys (disclaimer: i’m one of them). It’s more like Telephone than Pictionary. Much more freedom and the results are hilarious. http://doodleordie.com

Fun times. I actually played "telepictionary" aka "telestrations" for the first time probably back in 2007. It's a blast. Good to see someone made it digital.

Re: Looks Like Zynga Just Bought OMGPOP For $200 Million

#129

Post by phil »

ivankirigin wrote: post #93

Congrats to Charles and team! I've loved their games for ages, and hopefully their focus on quality will spread at Zynga. I have some friends at another game company that was bought, and after a recent chat recently, I'm FAR more excited by what they are building now than what they had before. So to all those that are worried about this, I think the studio nature of gaming companies means that their acquisitions don'…

I believe that -- and in particular, Newtoy seems to still be doing good work after being bought by Zynga.

Re: Looks Like Zynga Just Bought OMGPOP For $200 Million

#130

Post by dkrich »

anatari wrote: post #121
dkrich wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great. Would you pay $200mm for a game that was released a little over a month ago? It seems to me that money has no value in Silicon Valley. We've seen this story play out before, but I guess we'll need another bubble to clean out the rest of the suckers.

Yes, I would pay $200mm for a game that nets $250k/day or $91.25mm/year. Assuming Zynga does nothing but maintain the revenue, it will make back it's investment in a little over 2 years. How many investments opportunities are out there that net you a ~40% yield!? Of course there is risk with an investment like this, but this is after all, their core business and they are probably very good at mitigating those risks.

Ha, right. And in related news, at its height, the Pet Rock was netting a million dollars a day. At that rate, why didn't somebody pay $700 million to acquire the company? They could have made their money back in two years.
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