Zynga May Go Forward with IPO

Zynga is a social network game developer stationed in Southern California. Its focus is on producing casual games for Facebook and MySpace and is the most successful company in this field.

Founded 3 years ago, Zynga has quietly grown from a handful of coders to a multi-billion dollar corporation with more than 1,000 employees and a value estimated at $5.5 billion. Not too bad for a 3 year old.

Zynga is the company behind such games as Farmville, Frontierville, Cafe World, and Mafia Wars. They announced the beta launch of their newest game, Cityville, last week, which gives Zynga 7 games running on the hugely popular platform.

Zynga is not without controversy though. The company earns more than 90% of its revenue through the sale of in-game currency and benefits bought through the game interface. There have been numerous complaints and reports posted of people who have bought the in-game benefits, had the transaction go through, and then did not get the reward or in-game currency. Zynga's most common response to this has been 'The game is in a beta state, we apologise but no refunds are given'

Zynga has also been involved in guerrilla marketing with its Mafia Wars game. The latest incident involved a Advertiser who plastered a sidewalk in San Francisco with fake money. The advertising firm has since been fined $45,000 for vandalism as they plastered the fake bills over 75 different locations within the city downtown core.

Needless to say, Zynga Games has made a big splash with Facebook and MySpace and continues to make waves with every new release or update to it's existing games. A stock market float will certainly add value to the rapidly growing company. However, it does beg the question ... Is Zynga growing too big too fast ? Is it heading for it's profitable bubble to burst in the near future?