Zynga expands game lineup with Nokia deal

The social gaming company's 'Draw Something' and 'Poker' are coming to the Asha Touch.

By Benzinga Aug 17, 2012 1:13PM
By Louis Bedigian

Zynga (ZNGA) and Nokia (NOK) are teaming up to bring two hit games to a new range of devices.


Nokia announced on its official blog Friday that "Draw Something" and "Zynga Poker" will be coming to the Asha Touch later this year.


Zynga, which has acquired more than 300 million monthly active users (MAUs) through the release of Facebook (FB) games like FarmVille and CityVille, first entered the mobile space with the debut of several titles for Apple's (AAPL) iOS platform. Zynga games have since appeared on Google's (GOOG) mobile operating system, Android, as well as Windows Phone 7 from Microsoft (MSFT). (Microsoft owns and publishes Top Stocks, an MSN Money site.) 


In June, Zynga announced several new games, including "The Ville," "Matching With Friends," "Elite Slots," and the company's first real-time multiplayer game, "Bubble Safari."


Despite the announcements, Zynga shares continued to decline. Traders have taken issue with the company's failing business model and lackluster guidance, the latter of which proved to be significantly lower than investors anticipated.


On Aug. 3, Electronic Arts (EA) sued Zynga over the release of "The Ville," alleging that the game borrowed key elements from EA's own Facebook title, "The Sims Social."


Regardless, consumers have not been deterred from playing "The Ville." According to the AppData leaderboard, "The Ville" is currently the No. 1 Facebook game with more than 58 million MAUs. "The Sims Social" comes in at No. 20 with 16.5 million MAUs.


Despite the success of Zynga's games, investors remain concerned about the company's future. This concern was heightened when Amazon (AMZN) announced it was launching a new development studio to design games for social networks. Amazon's first title, "Living Classics," is being viewed as a unique-but-flawed hidden object game. At the same time, Zynga's games are typically referred to as flawed clones of other products.


Zynga made a few significant hires in 2011, including Mark Turmell, the creator of two hit games -- "NBA Jam" and "NFL Blitz." This year, however, the company has found it difficult to retain top talent.


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