If you really think about it, Draw Something is basically Win, Lose or Draw in mobile game form. The main difference between the two is that, in Draw Something, a lot of people resort to either cheating or drawing phallic imagery. Or maybe I just play with jerks. Either way, CBS has recently won a bidding war for a game show based on the Zynga-acquired title, created by Sony Pictures Television, Ryan Seacrest Productions and Embassy Row.
There's a piece of advice I like to give my friends when they're in trouble. A little pearl of wisdom, if you will, with the potential to improve just about every situation. "Go. Find Enrique Iglesias and Jennifer Lopez," I tell them, "they will help you in your time of need." With Zynga now enlisting both stars to promote Draw Something's global release, it's clear my advice carries a lot of gravitas.
Have you ever been playing Draw Something and thought to yourself "sure this is great, but it would be even better if it had _____"? Well now it does. Zynga has just announced a slew of new features that are all available via update, and it's live right now.
Yesterday, we reported Zynga bought out Draw Something developer OMGPOP for $210 million ($180 million plus another $30 million in employee payouts). Earlier today, Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter stated that the likeliest reason for such a high price point is a bidding war. Schachter pointed out that, despite Draw Something's popularity boom over the past few weeks, OMGPOP's $200 million price tag seem a little steep.
First comes love, then comes marriage. Or, to put a modern spin on an old children's classic, first comes acquisition, then comes mobile games development. Zynga's recent acquisition of Draw Something's creators, OMGPOP, initiated a split in Zynga New York: the studio will now engage in mobile games development, as well as social games development.
It was only four days ago that our very own Joel Brodie was predicting that "based on Zynga's pattern, they probably are offering to buy OMGPOP as we speak." When rumors suggesting the same surfaced on Monday, it seemed all but inevitable. Now the inevitable has come to pass. Zynga has just announced their latest acquisition; the purchase of Draw Something creator OMGPOP.
Wasn't it just the other day that I speculated that Zynga is probably in talks to buy OMGPOP, makers of the #1 game now on Apple and Facebook, Draw Something?Well, I was right. According to Techcrunch, Zynga is in early talks to acquire OMGPOP in the $150 - 250 million range. OMGPOP has raised $17 million to date and is also being courted by Japanese gaming heavyweights, Gree and Mobage/ngmoco. As reported, both companies are making a big bid to compete with Zynga in the social and market US market.
Ever since the dawn of mankind, as defined as since the release of FarmVille, Zynga has had the number one app on Facebook in terms of daily average users (DAU's) until now.Today, OMGPOP's Draw Something is officially the most popular app on Facebook with 10.8 million DAU's, compared to Words with Friends with 8.6 million DAU's according to AppData.