That's a lot of dough for (basically) one game, don't you think? In fact, OMGPOP is the FarmVille creator's largest acquisition yet. The final number of $180 million in cash has been confirmed by a new S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. While the OMGPOP team is now a part of Zynga New York, it's Draw Something that seems to have informed the developer's purchase decision most.Well, at least in the short term. Now, Zynga can claim ownership of the game's 14 million or so daily players (and that's only the Facebook-connected ones). Of course, considering what Draw Something can do with pop culture to remain relevant for, well, ever, this is also a long term concern. (Surely, the OMGPOP will be an asset on future Zynga mobile games.)
And this wasn't even the focus of the S-1, which revealed more details on Zynga's imminent secondary offering. Like previously reported, the offering is designed to limit which shareholders can sell off their stock and when. The developer calls this a move to "increase the company's public float," which basically means Zynga wants more control over its stock price. If every shareholder were able to sell right now, that could cause the stock price to plummet.
Zynga looks to sell off nearly 43 million shares, and CEO Mark Pincus will sell 15 percent of his shares--worth a cool $227 million or so. Other major investors and employees will get to sell shares, but lower-level staff will be locked out from doing so until the last week of April. If the company's looking to prevent a stock price drop, it's possible that Zynga looks to buy some time before some more major announcements to keep investors' interest piqued. In that case, stay tuned.
[Via TechCrunch]
[Image Credit: 20th Century Fox]
Are you shocked that Zynga spent what it did on OMGPOP? What do you hope/expect Zynga will announce to keep investors interested? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.