Zynga buys OMGPOP for $200 million
Zynga, the company that created popular Facebook games such as "FarmVille" and "Zynga Poker," announced its acquisition of fellow game developer OMGPOP on Wednesday.
Zynga, the company that created popular Facebook games such as "FarmVille" and "Zynga Poker," announced its acquisition of fellow game developer OMGPOP on Wednesday.
We鈥檝e confirmed the acquisition of OMGPOP by Zynga, the app-studio-eating megalith of social gaming. You know what they say: If you can鈥檛 beat 鈥榚m, buy 鈥榚m.
Zynga eventually wants 鈥渢o get one billion people to play together, and with this announcement, we鈥檙e getting closer to that goal,鈥� said Zynga鈥檚 chief mobile officer David Ko in a call today.
OMGPOP recently created Draw Something, a simple Pictionary-like app that saw skyrocketing stats for adoption within days of its release. As of last week, the app shop鈥檚 blockbuster game was showing the following stats, which come to VentureBeat courtesy of OMGPOP chief revenue officer Wilson Kriegel:
- 14.1 million daily active users
- 24.5 million installs
- 1.3 billion drawings created in the game
- 2,000 drawings per second
- Most tweeted-about game ever
Ko updated those stats today, stating the app has seen 35 million downloads altogether during its 6 weeks on the market, and players have created 1 billion drawings in the last week alone.
Draw Something鈥檚 growth was so meteoric that it even eclipsed Zynga鈥檚 Words With Friends as the top game on the AppData charts late last week. Now, Zynga has snapped up OMPOP for its very own, and All Things D pegs the sale price at $200 million.
We first got wind of the rumored acquisition earlier this week. At that time, OMGPOP CEO Dan Porter told VentureBeat, 鈥淚鈥檓 not in competition with Zynga. Words With Friends is a great game and has stood the test of time. That鈥檚 the press angle. My angle is about what makes the game special. You can quote me on it.鈥�
The OMGPOP 40-person team will now be Zynga employees, and Porter will be Zynga鈥檚 vice president and general manager of the comapany鈥檚 New York office. Porter said in a call today that having access to Zynga鈥檚 warchest of funds and resources will make it easier to bring a slate of new features to Draw Something quickly.
OMGPOP was founded four years ago and initially focused on web-based gaming. The company鈥檚 focus later shifted to Facebook games and now to mobile games. All told, the startup has raised $17 million in venture captial.
For more tech news, follow us on Twitter @venturenaut. And don鈥檛 forget to sign up for the weekly BizTech newsletter.