
Zynga's S-1 - taylorbuley
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1439404/000119312511180285/ds1.htm
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pvarangot
From the risks section:

 _We rely on a small percentage of our players for nearly all of our revenue.

A small percentage of our players account for nearly all of our revenue. We
lose paying players in the ordinary course of business. In order to sustain
our revenue levels, we must attract new paying players or increase the amount
our players pay. To retain paying players, we must devote significant
resources so that the games they play retain their interest and attract them
to our other games. If we fail to grow or sustain the number of our paying
players, or if the rate at which we add paying players declines or if the
average amount our paying players pay declines, our business may not grow, our
financial results will suffer, and our stock price may decline._

Is this normal in the social games industry?

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patio11
Yes. It is the dirty not-so-secret that convinced me not to go into them. It
is also true of nearly all "Free 2 Play" games, including ones off FB.

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c2
This seems night and day to GroupOn's S-1. A solid sustainable business,
plenty of cash on hand which is growing every quarter, and a clear path
forward to continue their phenomenal growth.

There are plenty of risks of course, not the least of which is Facebook
turning off the lights, but that is something that seems like it could be
baked into the IPO price for a 1 billion dollar company with these financials.

Not saying I will invest in few months after the IPO, generally it takes time
for investor hype to cool down and heat back up again (see LinkedIn, the only
people who made any money so far were the investment banks) - but it might be
a good post-IPO lull buy.

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fourspace
The funniest part is that Zynga has made a solid business selling virtual
goods, while Groupon has built a crap business selling the real thing.

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swalkergibson
This looks like the most promising IPO yet. They are sitting on a pile of
cash, they have a healthy profit margin, and it seems like they are the
undisputed market leader in a growing industry segment.

Question, how does the IPO price get set? Is it in the S-1 and I just missed
it, or does that come out later?

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portman
It comes later, in the weeks leading up to the actual offering.

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jkincaid
My concern about Zynga is that they're going to burn through users.

People will pay for things in a game and have fun doing it. Then they'll get
sick of that game and move on to the next one. And they'll buy more things
there, and then they'll get sick of that game and look at the next one and
realize that, hey, this one is pretty similar. And maybe it isn't worth
investing hours upon hours tending to some sprites. Or forking over real
money.

I'm not saying this is guaranteed, but as someone who has played a lot of
games growing up, I had it happen plenty of times. Zynga needs to release some
games that feel totally different from Farm/City/Frontierville.

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j79
I know they're famous for Farm/City/Frontierville, but they seem to have done
a good job acquiring popular games/studios (i.e. Words with Friends..)

And while I haven't played it yet, I've heard that "Hanging with Friends" is a
lot of fun as well (which is the result of them acquiring NewToy when they got
Words...)

Personally, It's nice to see Zynga attempting to keep "fresh" and not sticking
with just the *villes. However, I do think that increased competition (for
instance, on the iPhone Zynga Poker pales compared to Pokerist.com's Texas
Poker) will make it interesting for Zynga.

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timr
I found this tidbit amazing:

 _"As of March 31, 2011, approximately 64% of our employees had been with us
for less than one year and approximately 92% for less than two years."_

For a company with hundreds of employees, that's a crazy growth rate.

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rdl
A lot of their growth is through acquisitions, so it's a little bit less crazy
(the teams are intact and probably worked together for a bit before), but
still crazy.

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ritonlajoie
I have a question which could seem very amateurish but: how do I buy Zinga
when it's out ? Is there a way to actually place orders before the opening?

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starnix17
Not really an important question, but why didn't they specify a symbol?

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breck
Wow, how did Brad Feld acquire 30 million shares?

