Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) beat market expectations in its most recent earnings report, but investors are still worried about the company’s future. The social gaming firm has one asset, according to a report from Reuters this morning, but there is little else for the company to rely on, and that puts its future in the balance.
Many investors are excited about the Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) move toward real money gambling. As we’ve looked at before on Valuewalk, that market brings with it huge competition, and the only plausible edge that Zynga has over that competition is its intellectual property, most notably the Farmville brand.
In the company’s first quarter earnings report, Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) showed that its top game Farmville 2, is still working for the company, and is in fact beating revenue expectations. At the moment, the game’s Daily Average User numbers are still sitting close to 8 million, a number few analysts would have predicted when the game was launched last year.
Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) has been on a cost cutting run in the last year, as the firm’s revenues declined in a way that few at the head of the company expected. The company has laid off some of its staff and even closed down several of its offices in the United States in order to bring its cost base in line with new revenue guidance.
Farmville was one of the most successful games that Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) has ever created, and its sequel Farmville 2, is still one of the most important assets for the company. The problem is that outside of the brand, there is little else for Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) to rely on, and that is one of the firm’s biggest problems going forward.
Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) is bound to leverage the Farmville brand in order to buffer the uptake of its real money gambling offerings, as it has already done in its pseudo gambling game Zynga Slots. If the value of the Farmville brand declines in the coming months or year, Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) may have little to fall back.
Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) is working on moving Farmville 2 to mobile, in order to use the game to boost its mobile revenues, a must for the company. The attraction of the game will wear off, as it does with all games. Whether or not Farmville 3 will be enough to smooth the decline might not be in the firm’s control.
