Zynga (NASDAQ:
ZNGA
) and Nokia (NYSE:
NOK
) are teaming up to bring two hit games to a new range of devices.
Unveiled on Nokia's
official blog
this morning, the wireless phone manufacturer announced 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 (NASDAQ:
FB
) games like FarmVille and CityVille, first entered the mobile game
space with the debut of several titles for Apple's (NASDAQ:
AAPL
) iOS platform. Zynga games have since appeared on Google's
(NASDAQ:
GOOG
) mobile operating system, Android, as well as Windows Phone 7 from
Microsoft (NASDAQ:
MSFT
).
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 August 3, Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:
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 number-one Facebook game with more
than 58 million MAUs. The Sims Social comes in at number 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
(NASDAQ:
AMZN
) announced that 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 .
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