One issue with Zynga that I haven't seen explored enough is that the cost of making a Zynga Facebook game has increased dramatically, while the potential revenue from the same Facebook game has not. Zynga tried to apply their own version of AAA quality to games like CastleVille, and the result was that they spent a ton of money and still didn't make as much as they did with FarmVille (a game which took six weeks to create). Same problem with Mafia Wars 2 and FarmVille 2.
None of the surprisingly profitable breakout games mentioned here have been particularly expensive to make - Kixeye's three released games were supposedly built with very small teams, same with Supercells' enormously successful Clash of Clans and Hay Day.
Zynga is still making money. Lots of it. They just got too big too fast and had unrealistic expectations of their market's ability to sustain their games. Granted, user acquisition costs are much higher than they were before, partially as a result of Facebook making their viral channels more difficult to use... but IMO Zynga would have had these problems regardless.
None of the surprisingly profitable breakout games mentioned here have been particularly expensive to make - Kixeye's three released games were supposedly built with very small teams, same with Supercells' enormously successful Clash of Clans and Hay Day.
Zynga is still making money. Lots of it. They just got too big too fast and had unrealistic expectations of their market's ability to sustain their games. Granted, user acquisition costs are much higher than they were before, partially as a result of Facebook making their viral channels more difficult to use... but IMO Zynga would have had these problems regardless.