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.
The 
team behind Words With Friends and Scramble With Friends has a new game out – and they’re hoping to devour the last minutes of your free time.
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.
Over 
the past year, no tech company has had ups and downs quite like Zynga.
In the days leading up to its debut on Wall Street last December, the social game kingpin was heralded as The Next Big Thing, an unstoppable force in an evolving industry, with proponents pointing to the enduring draw of games like Farmville, Mafia Wars, and Words With Friends. Lately, though, the company’s stock has taken a brutal beatdown and those proponents have changed their tune.
Doodling 
on your iPhone could lead to big money and big prizes.
CBS is developing a primetime game show based on Zynga’s popular Draw Something app. The network won a bidding war for the rights to the game and is reportedly fast-tracking the show as a possible mid-season replacement to step in when one of its new series ultimately fails.
Zynga will participate in E3 for the first time. But instead of using the media-saturated event to showcase its titles, Zynga’s there with another goal in mind: capturing the eye of some of the industry’s best talent.
“It was an easy decision,” says Rob Dyer, vice president of partner publishing at Zynga. “We have a number of potential partners who will be there. … We did this very purposefully. We knew when we signed up for the space we would have launched Zynga Partners and would have Zynga.com up and running.
As 
Zynga prepares to make its first appearance at E3 next month, the developer’s head of partner publishing Rob Dyer explains why the social game company decided to exhibit at the traditionally core-focused show.
Something was missing at last year’s E3.
While there were the usual big announcements and spectacle, the absence of Zynga – which was already one of the largest publishers in the industry – was a shadow hard to ignore. This year, though, the social games maker has reversed course – and will join the industry’s annual circus.
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.
Shares 
of the social media site’s close ally Zynga briefly hit an all time low Friday and closed down precipitously. Editor at large Chris Morris looks at why investors fled – and what might lie ahead.
Through sheer force of will, Facebook managed to avoid closing at below its IPO price during its first day of trading on Wall Street. Unfortunately, that didn’t help its allies.
Zynga saw its stock lose roughly 14 percent of its value Friday – after briefly dropping to an all time low. Shares of the company closed at $7.12 following what can only be called an insane day of trading.
Chris Morris: Journalist 