What do Zynga earnings mean for CastleVille Legends

Above: Inside of Zynga
Image Credit: Zynga.com

On February 10th, a conference call for Zynga's investors revealed its earnings for the 4th quarter. During this meeting Zynga had the chance to 'show and tell' about what it has earned in revenue and what it intends to do as it moves forward into the new year. Social gaming company Zynga managed to beat Wall Street's figures for its 4th quarter but at the same time it also lost quite a bit. The good news is that the company also managed to stabilize the revenue from its most valuable games as it made an improvement in making money from its core players. The problem lies in the fact that the core number of users is down.

Why FarmVille 2: Country Escape has events and CastleVille Legends currently does not

CastleVille Legends players know best how hard it is to retain interest in a game that is seemingly being isolated from other event-heavy mobile games such as FarmVille 2: Country Escape. Why is that? Why does FV2 receive events during a period when CVL has a possible drought? The sad truth of the matter is that in comparison; CVL does not create as much money as FV2 makes on a daily basis.  And money talks.

Above: Revenue graph by franchise

Image Credit: Zynga.com

The graph above(click for larger view) demonstrates the amount of revenue that each franchise brings in for Zynga. Games representing less than 10% of online game revenue in any period are included in “Other Online Games” which happens to be the category that CVL falls into at the moment. The FarmVille franchises earn quite a bit while the "Other Online Games" earn a combined amount of what the FV titles bring in to Zynga's coffers.

Above: Play sign at the Zynga SF building

Image Credit: Zynga.com

The core base of users are migrating away from Facebook and into Mobile

One of the interesting things noted in Zynga's conference call was the fact that Zynga reported the money it made from mobile games grew by 35%, while revenue from web games almost matched that in decline, falling 32 percent. Zynga is still struggling with how to increase its number of users. It has generally been gaining users on mobile, but it is losing them on Facebook desktop as more users switch to mobile, where Zynga faces more competition.

Above: Play sign at the Zynga building

Image Credit: Zynga.com

What Zynga intends to do in the near future

In order to bring people back to their games Zynga will release 10 new titles including a sequel of FarmVille 2 as well as bringing back CityVille to mobile. Zynga will also concentrate on their casino games and begin making use of their latest acquistion of Zindagi Games; a company best known for its Match-3 titles.

For CastleVille Legends players this doesn't mean very much at the moment when new content is dry. When will we see new quests or events? Although I cannot give an exact answer to this I can say that Zynga will be focusing its attention to retain its current player base. The last thing they want is to drive the few remaining players it has away to the competition. What this may mean is that we will begin to see quests/events finally begin to roll out as the company wants to keep us on board. Now that the investors know what has been earned(and lost) the company can move forward with any plans they have discussed at the conference call.

The hard part is the waiting.

-Masaya of
Royal Legend