Zynga valued more than EA in latest estimates

October 26, 2010 By Molly McHugh

Social gaming developer Zynga is quickly taking over the market, and is now estimated to be worth more than the second largest gaming company in the world, EA.

As if anyone needed more confirmation that the social and mobile gaming genre was taking over the industry, Farmville creator Zynga has nearly doubled is market worth in the last several months and is more profitable than veteran gaming giant EA.

In March of last year, Zynga was valued at $2.61 billion dollars – not bad for a firm less than five years old. Today Bloomberg News reported its worth at $5.51 billion. EA is reported to be worth $5.16 billion.

Zynga continues to face public scrutiny (as well as lawsuits) concerning its security flaws after being found to share its users’ information with third-party vendors for advertising purposes. Still, it seems as though the scandal hasn’t had a negative impact on its financial success, at least yet. Responsible for creating six of the 10 most popular Facebook games, the company maintains inexpensive operations and its users number in the millions.

The presence of social and mobile gaming only seems to growing, and while it may have been outsold by Zynga, EA is taking notes. Less than a week ago, the company acquired Angry Birds publisher Chillingo, a popular mobile gaming publisher, for $20 million. And last year, EA purchased prominent social gaming company Playfish for $275 million. Despite these attempts, however, the gaming giant has seen shares drop over 20 percent in the last year and was forced to make substantial staffing cuts. EA is clearly struggling to adjust to a console-less gaming environment, but seems to know that investing in social and mobile gaming is the safe bet to turn profits around.

Update: Originally we stated Chillingo was the developer of Angry Birds. A reader pointed out that they are a publisher. This has been corrected.

Showing 6 comments

@20thLevel at 7:13pm 26th October 2010 Chillingo did not develop Angry Birds; Rovio did. Chillingo was merely the publisher. Rovio has already said they won't be using Chillingo to publish any future games.
1. ioman at 7:52pm 26th October 2010 Thanks, I had them update the article.
John at 5:31pm 26th October 2010 This kind of reminds me of the time when AOL was thought to be worth more than Time Warner - a company that actually produced real content. Zynga is all paper. Until they go public, or get aquired, and we can see how much they're actually making, their valuation means nothing.
@ashley_m0 at 5:02pm 26th October 2010 I wouldnt say EA produce quality games but they are an established game studio that pump millions into a game. Zynga creates games I could of created in an hour with a bit of Java knowledge; and that's the difference. Zyngas profit margin is huge EA spends millions to make millions, Zynga spends thousands to make millions.
nachos at 5:00pm 26th October 2010 zynga is not a public company, until they reveal their financials its all bs. Just like facebook is 15 billion .. yeah right
Carrie at 10:51am 26th October 2010 The difference between the two companies is that EA doesn't trick people into playing their games. They are an honest (well, more so) company that produces quality games. Zynga produces pammer game, nothing more.