Zynga Is Getting Destroyed After A Terrible Earnings Report

Business Insider: Zynga is crashing after a bad earnings report.
The stock has been on a wild ride after-hours. It dropped hard, then bounced back to be down 2%, then it fell more than 14%, and now it's down 7%.

It missed expectations and lowered its guidance.

Revenue was $153 million, a 34% drop year-over-year, versus expectations of $191 million. It provided Q3 guidance of $160-$170 million, which is way below analyst expectations of $212.35 million.

It also lowered full-year guidance. It says, "Bookings are projected to be in the range of $695 million to $725 million, compared to previous expectation between $770 million to $810 million."

[miyamoto]

Enter the Mattrick!

The Mattrick Effect is incredible.

[Bigpappy]

What is the opposite of Midas Touch?

[Redlogic]

Tin foil touch?

[XtraTrstrL]

Lol, you're mean.

[brish]

Midas was the name of the person that when he touched anything it turned to gold.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Since everything Don Mattrick touches turns to shit I assume that would be the "Mattrick touch".

[ShinMaster]

Is it me or is casual mobile gaming not as popular as it was a couple years ago?

It feels as if... the more people own smartphones, the less new and trendy phone games become. Then again, it could totally just be me.

[on topic]
I doubt Mattrick had much impact in such a short amount of time though. I think Zynga might have had this coming to them for a little while.

[AngelicIceDiamond]

Everything Don touches.

Turns to dust...

[Why o why]

Monumental day..........

N4g in full agreement

Now thats the mattrick affect.......unite

[ScottyHoss]

Breaking news: The Mattrick Touch blamed for poverty in Detroit, reports suggest he was giving out high fives and Zynga mobile points cards, all of which are now completely worthless... He's touched them too

[mixolydian_id]

We should send Mattrick to the Gaza strip.

Everyone would just shake on it and call it a day

[BiggerBoss]

Don Mattrick is just great at being terrible

[HugoDrax]

"Enter the Mattrick!"

LMAO! hahahaha I'm crying over here.

[Bhuahahaha]

lol thats really a good one

[Magicite]

what is next thing Mattrick gonna destroy?

[mixolydian_id]

Just what IS a 'Zynga'?

Some kind of cake?

"Poof and.... it's gone!"

[Knushwood Butt]

Yet he still gets paid a fortune.

[pwnsause_returns]

Mattrick and zynga make the perfect pair.

[johndoe11211]

And this surprises people why???

[AngelicIceDiamond]

Considering it came from Don selling a crap ton of 360's with great marketing and a key person in the success of Xbox.

To suffocating MS game studios.

implementing DRM and used game restrictions.

Now what's truly shocking about it is Zynga games is his strong point.

Casual software company and yet hes failing in that?

WTF is this guy doing!?

This deserving of a lol worthy moment.

[gangsta_red]

Lol, be gone Zynga! The only tear I shed are for the many underpaid QA workers you contract out and use as slaves for a year and let go.

The board of trustees will soon buyout Mattrick and he'll pimp walk to another company and get an even bigger paycheck?

[snarls200]

that is one of the problems with business

[jimjam3442]

i like matrick, he single handedly destroyed two of my most hated companies!

[Voozi]

Glad I sold all my stock at $5.50 earlier this year. Thanks Don!

[Palitera]

In case anyone else is wondering... 2.92 now.

Well played!

[user367272]

Didn't Price Matrix just got $50 millions from Zynga? What a waste of money. MS was smart to let this guy go. All hail Spencer as he is doing a great job after taking over.

[The_Sneauxman]

Don.Mattrick.

[Dudebro90]

Zynga was doomed before Don showed up.

[pwnsause_returns]

Gotta admit that adding Don Mattrick to the mix makes them crash in flames even harder.

[Tedakin]

I heard Don Mattrick showed back up at MS trying to get his old Xbox job back, and Phil Spencer punched him in the face. I'll submit the article.

[AngelicIceDiamond]

Your lying because we would of known.

Lol Man why you teasing.

[Tedakin]

It's TRUE! I read it on the internet!!!!

[pwnsause_returns]

I think every employee at Microsoft should punch in him the face.

[Mr Marvel]

You can only get away with making crappy mobile games for so long.

I hope many of these mobile shovelware companies die so they realise that real games are on consoles and PC.

[maniacmayhem]

The problem was they weren't a factor in mobile. They relied to heavy on Facebook and Facebook quickly moved away from being a gaming type of social network.

Zynga totally missed the mobile boat and a lot of other companies put the same type of games on mobile first and got a strong and huge following.

Not to mention Zynga's rip off F2P money gouging tactics that their users caught on too and got sick of real quick.

It's really not Mattrick's fault but more of Pincus's fault. But Zynga traded one horrible CEO for another.

[kingdip90]

I think the fault lies with the philosophy.

While zynga games can be played for free the model is set up in such a way that if people invest enough of your time into it and get impatient people to fork over money. This model works so well because you have to be online to play most of these games making forking over money very convenient and easy.

The bubble is bursting on these games because they appeal to a casual market and with no real accomplishment after you have bought everything and no real end to the game there is no reason for people to play for an extended period of time, heck there is little to no prospects for replay value on games like farmville. Everyone who will play these games has played these games and moved on to the next big thing. Zynga is dying because it couldn't keep ahead of trend.

Don mattrick I feel, believed in an always online pay to play at your own pace/to win philosophy. The belief being that xbox one could attract the casual and the hard core gaming crowd and make a mint of this business model. Since the backlash at microsoft forcing changes to the always online dream matrick left for a company whose business model fit his philosophy on how to improve the profitability of games.

It isn't working and I'm not surprised. An always online environment is possible but not one that is as exploitative as mattrick and zynga had hoped.

[ShinMaster]

"strong and huge following"

Are you referring to the games or the companies?
I don't think there are loyal fans of any company in particular in the casual mobile gaming crowd.

[maniacmayhem]

@Shin

I mean the games. A lot of the companies beat Zynga to mobile and because of this those games acquired a huge following in numbers.

@kingdip90
I definitely agree. The model that Zynga (and others) put out there got tired real quick. Their games were specifically designed to gauge their players out of as much money as possible.

Zynga grew too fast to quick and they weren't able to keep up with their own growth. They bet it all on a social media site that had their own agenda and did nothing to plan for their own future. Instead they went out and bought companies that were just as much as a passing fad as their games were.

[Gamer777]

Mattrick the destroyer!

[Godmars290]

Don't you worry about Mattrick. The way modern corporate business is set up, he'll come out of it aaaaallll-rrrrrgghht.

Pity about the poor bastards who last several paychecks bounced though...

[RiPPn]

Hopefully Mattrick can go take King out next!

[masterfox]

Oh Mattrick.

[MartinB105]

Any bad news for Zynga is worth celebrating in my book! Scum of the gaming industry. I hope they go bust. :)

[SaffronCurse]

Love it, keep falling Zynga.

[lameguy]

This makes me so happy. I work for a company where some employees left to go work at Zynga.

I will never hire them back if they happen to lose their job and if I have a say during their interview loop. It was clear that they left to chase $$ and didn't want to push any state of the 'art' forward in any way.

[diesoft]

You know what will be even more sad? Whatever happens to the company he will have a golden parachute. He will move on to the next company and destroy them, too, while gaining even more money.

How the HELL is this an okay business practice?

[Toxic-zombie]

All Mattrick has to do once he destroys this company is move over to King and begin the process of destruction again.

[Muzikguy]

I'm sooooo glad to hear this news! I don't like Zynga one bit and I don't like any of their games. They had me on FarmVille until I realized they couldn't even make a decent app for the fully capable iPhone. Let alone all the pointless updates every other week. No more Zynga for me. They're one of the worst for F2P IMO

[Mrveryodd]

How much do they pay this guy ...... That's two in a row.

[HappyWithOneBubble]

And he will still get his millions in bonuses. That's what piss me off about companies when a CEO brings the company down with their bad business decisions, they are still rewarded with big bonuses. What a shame.

[blndrhyme]

Next stop EA

[Bhuahahaha]

after that ubisoft or capcom

[MasterCornholio]

Where Don't goes destruction follows.

[KirbysDump]

Don Mattrick is a curse on companies

[Gore-Content]

MS should be thankful for Mattrick's departure. Everywhere he goes flowers wither it seems.

[Iltapalanyymi]

good.