Skip to main content

Is FarmVille-maker Zynga really worth $10 billion?

Truckloads of dollars continued to rain down upon Silicon Valley this week, with social game-maker Zynga completing a $500 million round of fund raising that placed the company’s value at nearly $10 billion, according to a report by All Things D.

Investors in the funding round, which All Things D’s Kara Swisher says is “essentially a precursor to an initial public offering,” include Morgan Stanley, Fidelity Investments and T. Rowe Price, among others.

Recommended Videos

The $500 million mark exceeds earlier reports by the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, which placed the fundraising round’s estimated figure at around $250 million, and Zynga’s total value at between $7 billion and $9 billion.

The high value place on Zynga is primarily due to its close relationship with Facebook, where it developed many of its hit games, including FarmVille, CityVille and Mafia Wars. These games, while free to install, have helped indoctrinate customers into the practice of spending real money on virtual goods, like digital seeds in FarmVille. Zynga’s has done so well at this it is rumored to have earned $400 million in profits last year from the company’s some 275 million total users.

Zynga’s $10 billion valuation follows rumors that Google and Facebook were both engaged in preliminary talks with Twitter to buy the microblogging service for between $8 billion and $10 billion. And at the beginning of this year, Facebook was famously valued at $50 billion after it raised $500 million in investments from Goldman Sachs and others.

Some experts believe the astronomical value placed on these social media companies is evidence of a looming tech bubble that could eventual burst on investors.

Whether or not Zynga’s $10 billion valuation is telltale of inflated prices in the social media sector, or genuinely what the online game company is worth, will only be revealed in time. For Zynga’s sake, here’s to hoping people really want to keep raising fake sweet potatoes.

Andrew Couts
Features Editor for Digital Trends, Andrew Couts covers a wide swath of consumer technology topics, with particular focus on…
PS6: everything we know about the PlayStation 6 so far
A PS5 DualSense controller.

*Updated 6/13/2025 to include new hardware details, release date rumors, and handheld details from the latest Sony Game & Network Services Segment Fireside Chat

It sounds like we're going to learn more about a next-generation PlayStation sooner rather than later now that we have the PS5 Pro in our hands.

Read more
Dune: Awakening review: an MMO as dense as its source material
A player in front of a massive sandworm in Dune: Awakening concept art.

The first lesson I learned in Dune: Awakening was that I couldn't take Arrakis lightly.

I was still learning the ways of the desert when I attempted to cross a vast open stretch of sand toward my next quest objective. I hadn't even trekked halfway across the dunes before my heat meter was over half full, threatening sunstroke, and my hydration levels were empty. I didn't have time to notice when the vibration waves at the bottom of my screen turned red and a Sandworm was bearing down on me. I diverted course to a closer rocky outcropping and sprinted as fast as my legs could carry me, reaching salvation mere moments before the worm's jaws could swallow me whole.

Read more
My Best Buy Plus and Total members, don’t miss this Nintendo Switch 2 offer
The Nintendo eShop appears on a Switch 2 screen.

The Nintendo Switch 2 was just launched, but rewards are already up for grabs if you buy games and accessories from the Nintendo Switch deals at Best Buy. For every $150 that you spend on games and accessories for the Nintendo Switch 2 and Nintendo Switch, you'll receive a $20 gift certificate. You can get rewards of up to $100, which you'll accumulate if you're going to make a $750 investment.

The only requirement to start collecting the gift certificates is that you should be a My Best Buy Plus or My Best Buy Total member. My Best Buy Plus, which costs $50 a year, gives you perks such as free two-day shipping and an extended 60-day return window on most products, while My Best Buy Total, which costs $180 a year, adds protection plans and 24/7 tech support, among lots of other benefits.

Read more