But the house that built FarmVille chalks that up to Draw Something, for whatever reason. Zynga has finally released its third quarter financials, and oddly enough, they have their ups and downs. The social game maker reports that it has lost 28 percent of its monthly unique payers (MUP) since the second quarter of 2012, or 4.1 million MUP to 3 million MUP.Despite this, Zynga has reported an overall increase in revenue of 3 percent year-over-year (YOY), or since September 2012 of last year (the end of the third quarter), to the tune of $317 million. (Its year-to-date revenue is also up by 17 percent to $970 million.) On the upside, however, both daily and monthly unique player numbers are up by 10 and 17 percent since this time last year.
Zynga also pointed toward recent successes like FarmVille 2 and ChefVille, but what perhaps is most interesting is another bit of news that the company squeezed in underneath. It's official: Zynga will launch its online gambling initiative in the UK with bwin.party, a leading international real money gambling operator. By the first half of 2013, Zynga expects to have a suite of 180 casino games including slots, roulette and blackjack, all powered by bwin.party.
As part of the 2013 initiative, Zynga will also launch a FarmVille-branded real money slots game in the UK. Regardless of whether gambling is successful for the company, that won't bring back the 1 million paying players lost in its current spate of games. How Zynga will manage that is anyone's guess.
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