The social video game firm Zynga poses a dilemma. On the one
hand its titles are some of the most popular on Facebook and app stores.
It says it attracts 182 million unique players every month - all of them potential customers for its virtual goods.
On the other it is a loss-making developer with huge ambitions but a questionable future, in part because its fortunes are so closely tied to Facebook.
These doubts are reflected in its stock, which is currently more than 40% below its flotation price.
To discuss the San Francisco-based company's future the BBC spoke to Cadir Lee, Zynga's chief technology officer:
Zynga always aimed to be social gaming company. What lessons did it learn along the way?
Cadir Lee Cadir Lee is responsible for developing Zynga's technology platform
We started with the premise that social matters. And over time we have seen how important that is.
We have this thing called the Active Social Network, and one of the things that we have seen is that your likelihood to play and to continue to play is directly related to the number of people you are engaged with.
We do a considerable amount to make sure that the difference between playing by yourself and playing with even just one person is significant.
There's a huge step up in terms of the numbers of days you play, how engaged you are. And it keeps going as you have three, four, five or six people.
It really shows that if you have this core group with a half dozen or a dozen people that they're going to be much more engaged in the game.
You have bought or opened studios in Bangalore, Beijing, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Dublin and London outside of the US. Is this about making sure you understand local markets or are you just securing talent?
“Start Quote
We actually had some little slogans around saying 'keep calm and carry on' which was to remind people you can work to make the business better and you're not going to change anything about the share price until we do that”
End Quote Cadir Lee Chief technology officer, Zynga
It says it attracts 182 million unique players every month - all of them potential customers for its virtual goods.
On the other it is a loss-making developer with huge ambitions but a questionable future, in part because its fortunes are so closely tied to Facebook.
These doubts are reflected in its stock, which is currently more than 40% below its flotation price.
To discuss the San Francisco-based company's future the BBC spoke to Cadir Lee, Zynga's chief technology officer:
Zynga always aimed to be social gaming company. What lessons did it learn along the way?
Cadir Lee Cadir Lee is responsible for developing Zynga's technology platform
We started with the premise that social matters. And over time we have seen how important that is.
We have this thing called the Active Social Network, and one of the things that we have seen is that your likelihood to play and to continue to play is directly related to the number of people you are engaged with.
We do a considerable amount to make sure that the difference between playing by yourself and playing with even just one person is significant.
There's a huge step up in terms of the numbers of days you play, how engaged you are. And it keeps going as you have three, four, five or six people.
It really shows that if you have this core group with a half dozen or a dozen people that they're going to be much more engaged in the game.
You have bought or opened studios in Bangalore, Beijing, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Dublin and London outside of the US. Is this about making sure you understand local markets or are you just securing talent?
“Start Quote
We actually had some little slogans around saying 'keep calm and carry on' which was to remind people you can work to make the business better and you're not going to change anything about the share price until we do that”
End Quote Cadir Lee Chief technology officer, Zynga
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