NEW YORK and SAN FRANCISCO, March 21, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Zynga (Nasdaq:ZNGA), the world's leading provider of social game services, today announced it has acquired New York-based social game developer OMGPOP, makers of the popular cultural hit mobile game, Draw Something, and over 35 additional social games. As a part of the Zynga family, OMGPOP will focus on building new mobile IP and strengthening its existing portfolio of fun and creative social games.
"The OMGPOP team has created a game that's fun, expressive and engenders real social interaction," said Mark Pincus, founder and CEO of Zynga. "Draw Something has captured the imagination of millions of people around the world. We love the way they've worked playful and relevant culture into their games from Devo to Daft Punk, from Lin to Beckham. We're honored to have the opportunity to partner with and support such an innovative team of creative inventors."
"I want to thank our players, our fans, everyone who's ever drawn something. You've made this game into something truly special. Zynga offered us a chance to focus on Draw Something – they know the power of the game and they planned with us how to let it keep rolling in the same fun, irreverent, social way that it has been. That was really important to us," said Dan Porter, CEO of OMGPOP. "The game will stay true to you and what you love, and it's my solemn vow that the magic of Draw Something will not change. I know without a doubt that Zynga is the right partner for OMGPOP. Our new partners at Zynga know how to innovate at scale, and they're pushing the limits of social with their mobile games. With the added resources we now have, and the deep gaming experience we can draw from, we can't wait to continue to surprise our users. If you're a fan, a player of ours, I can't wait to show you what's in store – it's going to be drawsome."
In the six weeks since Draw Something launched, it has been downloaded over 35 million times. Draw Something's eye-popping stats include:
- In the last week, more than 1 billion drawings have been created.
- Draw Something had three drawings per second the day the game launched.
- Yesterday, Draw Something has over 3,000 drawings per second at its peak.
- Draw Something is the #1 word game in 84 countries according to the Apple App Store – shout out to Sweden and Norway for being the first two countries to recognize Draw Something's greatness. Nordic Love!
- The most popular words in Draw Something are: Starfish, pregnant, hangman, six pack, boom box
- The least popular word in Draw Something is latrine
- The best guessed words in Draw Something are: Rainbow, catfish, sun, fish, house, god, tornado
- The least guessed words in Draw Something are: Oar, Metroid, Warhol, pounce, polaroid, meathead, Autobots
"At Zynga we're committed to building brands that we're proud of and that our players absolutely love," said David Ko, Chief Mobile Officer of Zynga. "We want people to play our games and feel a fun and valuable social connection to their friends and family. We think Draw Something is one of the most social, most expressive mobile games ever built with its unique social competition and unmatched player generated content. We're excited about the brands OMGPOP has developed to date and we look forward to supporting the team's creativity and helping scale their incredible games to an even bigger global audience."
OMGPOP began as iminlikewithyou, a social network for people to meet and play games. The company soon after launched its social gaming website, OMGPOP.com in 2009. OMGPOP is best known for Draw Something, one of the fastest growing word games of all time. The game has stormed to success through a combination of creativity and nostalgia paired with pop culture hooks. How would you draw Jeremy Lin, Katniss Everdeen or LMFAO? Draw Something is available on iOS, Android and Facebook.
Today's announcement follows on the heels the recent announcement of Zynga.com, a new play service that will serve as an online destination dedicated to social games, as well as the Zynga Platform, which will allow third party developers to create and publish games on the Platform. Zynga is currently working closely with select Platform partners, and plans to open up the Zynga Platform and make it more widely available to all third party game developers through an API later this year.
Over the past six months Zynga mobile has been focused on creating fun, high quality, social mobile gaming experience for players on-the-go. With 15 game launches in the past two quarters, Zynga Mobile is bringing a variety of genres and games to reflect its players' lifestyles and provide them with the social experiences they want, at any time and on any device, regardless of platform. Zynga Mobile is building evergreen brands like the With Friends franchise including Words With Friends, Scramble With Friends and Hanging With Friends and the Dream franchise.
OMGPOP will remain headquartered in New York (at its totally cool offices) and report to David Ko, Chief Mobile Officer of Zynga.
About Zynga Inc.
Zynga Inc. (Nasdaq:ZNGA) is the world's leading provider of social game services with more than 240 million monthly active users playing its games, which include CityVille, FarmVille, Words With Friends, Scramble With Friends, CastleVille, Hidden Chronicles, Zynga Poker, Empires & Allies, Indiana Jones™ Adventure World, The Pioneer Trail, Mafia Wars and Café World. Zynga's games are available on a number of global platforms, including Facebook, Zynga.com, Google+, Tencent, Apple iOS and Google Android. Through Zynga.org, Zynga players have raised more than $10 million for world social causes. Zynga is headquartered in San Francisco, Calif.
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About OMGPOP
OMGPOP is a developer and publisher of social and mobile games focused on bringing people together. Its latest mobile hit, "Draw Something," soared to the top of the charts, reaching #1 in several App Store and Google Play categories, including: #1 Overall Paid and Free App; #1 Top Grossing; and #1 Word Game in more than 80 countries worldwide. Draw Something has been downloaded over 35 million times and players have created nearly 3 billion unique and hilarious drawings since its launch in February 2012. OMGPOP was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in New York, NY. Its investors include Spark Capital, Rho Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, SoftBank Capital, SV Angel, Baseline Ventures and Betaworks.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements relating to, among other things, OMGPOP's future focus, activities and growth, Zynga's plans with respect to the Zynga Platform and Zynga Mobile's focus on building future franchises. Our actual results could differ materially from those predicted or implied by these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, the inability to build or scale new intellectual property through acquisition, and the potential inability to integrate an outside team into Zynga's larger structure.
More information about factors that could affect our operating results is included in our SEC filings, including under the captions "Special Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements", "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" in our Registration Statement on Form S-1 as filed with the SEC on March 14, 2012, copies of which may be obtained by visiting our Investor Relations website at investor.zynga.com or the SEC's web site at www.sec.gov. Undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements in this release, which are based on information available to us on the date hereof. We assume no obligation to update such statements.