Falling stock prices for Zynga are nothing new. The social gaming giant has struggled mightily ever since their initial public offering at the end of 2011. Zynga had hoped to give themselves a boost after partnering up with bwin.party and launching a real money poker client last year. Though only available to UK residents, the thought was that Zynga’s social gamers would eventually download the real money poker client too.
However, this venture has been a complete flop, failing to generate much business for either Zynga or PartyPoker. One of the chief problems was that players have to leave Facebook in order to check out Zynga’s real money poker operation. Seeing as how Zynga gained and now maintains their fame through social games offered on Facebook, few recreational players are enthused about leaving the site.
That said, Zynga recently launched an app that’ll allow Brits to play real money poker directly through Facebook. The huge benefit here is obviously convenience because real money players can stay on Facebook. But will this translate into anything significant in the way of poker traffic? Furthermore, will any potential traffic increase be enough to save their plummeting stock?
Zynga’s already fragile stock took another hit when a Stern Agee analyst released a report that predicts poor results in Q1 of 2014. The report also shed some negative light on Zynga’s Q4 earnings in 2013.
Long story short, this company could really use a major boost. And they’re hoping that the Facebook poker app will at least be part of the solution. Of course, it’s difficult to put too much faith in a real money app that’s only available to the 63 million people living in the UK.