Zynga might have to react sooner as casino apps are taking away a substantial chunk of money. In social game segments, casino apps are outperforming their poker peers, a fact that should worry Zynga, which is struggling to retain its ground.
Zynga’s struggle hurting overall market
SuperData Research (via VentureBeat) suggests that the total revenue from the world of social online poker is coming down quickly and that this trend is going to stay for many years to come.
Zynga Poker earned $203 million in 2013, but this year it is expected to drop to around $179 million, and by 2017 it will likely touch around $156 million. Zynga lost around 44% of its audience last year even though it is still the biggest company in the social poker market, taking in around 61% of all money in the segment. According to SuperData research, a substantial change like this taking the whole market down.
“Because of Zynga Poker’s overwhelming command over social poker, their performance has been reflected in the overall market,” said senior analyst Stehpanie Llamas, adding that Zynga’s poker game had been growing on the back of an increasing volume of users as average spending is low for these types of games.
WSOP a potential threat
Owing to a decline in its user base, Zynga could be overtaken by WSOP’s social poker game, as it has increased its user base two-fold and now has around 3.25 million players. Llamas said that in the mobile segment, WSOP has shown real strength, and the app could possibly outperform Zynga Poker in terms of the number of mobile users, perhaps this year. The analyst notes that the mobile market will account for a major portion of revenue from social poker by 2018.
SuperData reports that casual players are more interested in playing casino games, something that might be useful for Zynga if it wants to win back some of its audience. Llamas believes that Zynga, through its poker game, could attract poker enthusiasts who prefer the experience of a standalone poker app. Casino poker players, on the other hand, are more interested in casino-style apps that offer poker along with titles like slots and blackjack.
It is not that Zynga is not trying to change. The game maker took up the challenge to revamp its poker software last March, but the efforts ended up being disastrous as many players were not satisfied with the changes, thus leaving Zynga no option but to revive the older version of the software as an offering known as Zynga Poker Classic.
