Mark 
Pincus has never been someone who follows the same path as the rest of the video game industry, but his latest divergence is a particularly interesting one.
A little over a week ago, Zynga CEO Pincus retweeted an analysis piece suggesting the company should abandon its efforts as a publicly traded entity and consider going private. The suggestion comes less than a year after Zynga’s highly publicized IPO.
As 
Zynga’s stock continues to hover around its all-time low, the number of high-level executives bailing from the social games maker is reaching critical mass.
Chief Creative Officer Mike Verdu is the latest to jump ship, announcing Tuesday that he was leaving the company to start a new firm.
As 
Zynga’s share prices circle the drain, Gamasutra editor-at-large Chris Morris examines how CEO Mark Pincus’ “insistence on absolute control” has left the company’s investors in a tough position.
It’s a pretty safe assumption that anyone who shelled out for Zynga stock when the company went public — or even in the five months that followed — isn’t real happy these days.
After reaching a high of nearly $16 per share, the stock now dwells in the cellar, closing Thursday at $3.25. (And, if it weren’t for JMP Securities’ bullish words when it initiated coverage on the company Wednesday, it would almost certainly be even lower.)
To 
say the last two weeks have been unkind to Zynga is a bit of an understatement. The company’s stock has plunged roughly 45 percent. It reported an earnings shortfall. Guidance was reduced. And it found itself on the receiving end of a lawsuit from one of the videogame industry’s biggest publishers.
The hits just keep on coming for a company that not long ago was the poster child for the next big thing in gaming. More bad news for Zynga could be on the way.
Last 
week was an ugly one for Zynga, but the company is likely to face some even rockier times, argues Chris Morris, with the coming expiration of a new round of employee stock options being the most looming hurdle.
Last week was an ugly one for Zynga. An earnings shortfall and reduced guidance for the coming fiscal year resulted in a 40 percent drop in the company’s stock, which brought out the doomsayers.
Those corporate obituaries are premature, but the company is likely to face some even rockier times before there’s much chance of things getting better.
Zynga 
is heading back to the farm.
At the company’s Zynga Unleashed press event Tuesday, CEO Mark Pincus unveiled a number of new titles and initiatives meant to showcase the company’s independence. Chief among those was a formal sequel to its breakout hit Farmville and a new entry in its popular “With Friends” line of mobile games.
The 
trading debut of Facebook didn’t exactly burst out of the gate like many people expected. But while the company was getting pounded in mid-day trading Monday, shares of “tracking” stocks — companies people invested in to own a piece of Facebook before it went public — have suffered terribly in its wake.
None more so than fellow social giant Zynga.
Not everyone is celebrating the launch of Facebook on Wall Street.
Shares of the social media site’s close ally Zynga nosedived when Facebook shares began trading Friday morning. The company saw its stock price fall more than 14 percent at one point during the day – with Nasdaq having to halt trading of shares twice due to those fluctuations.
Facebook 
likes Zynga – a lot.
While the social game maker endured some close scrutiny during its IPO because of its reliance on Facebook, the relationship is actually more of a codependent one — and Facebook will be the first to admit that.
After its first day 
on the NASDAQ, Zynga’s performance has been less-than-impressive, and Gamasutra editor-at-large Chris Morris takes a moment to figure out exactly what went awry.
Shares in Zynga’s Wall Street debut may have started strong today, but minutes after they began trading, the stock’s pricing chart looked like something that even the most extreme skier would have avoided.
By the time all was said and done, the company was down 5 percent, closing at $9.50 per share (and was down as much as 10 percent at one point during the day), bucking the trend of the year’s other hot internet stocks, like LinkedIn and Groupon — despite the fact that Zynga is profitable, while those companies are not. What went wrong?
Chris Morris: Journalist 