Google Makes Facebook Angry by Taking Zynga on a Date
posted Sunday Aug 1, 2010 by Nicholas DiMeo
Last week, we talked about how Google Me would be a way for Google to take on Facebook, at least on the social media side of things. But what about for the gaming market? With online games such as FrontierVille and FarmVille taking over, Google would have had to have seen the success, and this week, it looks like they have taken notice, as Google is trying to sweet talk social-gaming giant Zynga into doing business with them.
It only makes sense for Google to make this move, as we also learned this week that Disney bought Playdom, the #3 game developer behind Zynga and EA, for $563.2 million and GameStop made a move for Flash game developer Kongregate.
For more on Google's plot, follow the break.
Online fake things are worth lots of money, especially in places like China and other Asian countries. The US market is expected to hit $2 billion in total revenue for online purchases by 2012. Talk about a market segment Google hasn't gotten their hands into yet!
Zynga is currently valued at $4.5 billion and their current going rates for popular items like tractors and chickens go anywhere from $3.50 to $4.40 per purchase. Multiply that by the hundreds of millions of players that use the service, and we're talking big bucks in the bank at a rapid rate. To further prove that the move will be viable for Google is the fact that Google has already put over $100 million into Zynga and the game developer projects $1 billion in revenue by 2011. We've also talked about Zynga's falling out with Facebook recently, so this would be a perfect time for Zynga to find a new playmate.
We'll see if anything comes of this and if it puts Google in contention with the giant known as Facebook. Somebody's got to knock them down a few pegs.
