Social game giant Zynga today announced it has acquired OMGPOP, the social game developer responsible for the surprise hit mobile game Draw Something and 35 other social games.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. However, the price is reported to be $180 million with an additional $30 million in employee-retention payments according to TechCrunch and AllThingsD.
Draw Something was launched just six weeks ago and already has been downloaded over 35 million times. During that time more than 1 billion drawings have been created, growing to over 3,000 drawings per second at its peak yesterday (March 20). The talent is likely to be another big part of the attraction for Zynga, however, as it continues its expansion into mobile.
OMGPOP will remain headquartered in New York and report to David Ko, Chief Mobile Officer of Zynga. The company’s investors include Spark Capital, Rho Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, SoftBank Capital, SV Angel, Baseline Ventures and Betaworks.
Dan Porter, CEO of OMGPOP, promised users that “the magic” of the game will not change. “Our new partners at Zynga know how to innovate at scale, and they’re pushing the limits of social with their mobile games,” he said. “With the added resources we now have, and the deep gaming experience we can draw from, we can’t wait to continue to surprise our users. If you’re a fan, a player of ours, I can’t wait to show you what’s in store — it’s going to be drawsome.”
OMGPOP began life as the game-oriented social network iminlikewithyou, then launched its own gaming website OMGPOP.com in 2009.
“The OMGPOP team has created a game that’s fun, expressive and engenders real social interaction,” said Mark Pincus, founder and CEO of Zynga. “Draw Something has captured the imagination of millions of people around the world. We love the way they’ve worked playful and relevant culture into their games from Devo to Daft Punk, from Lin to Beckham. We’re honored to have the opportunity to partner with and support such an innovative team of creative inventors.”
Related links:
http://www.omgpop.com/drawsomething
Zynga – press release
AllThingsD – Zynga Just Bought OMGPOP for $200 Million
TechCrunch – Draw Something Sucks, But Here’s Why Zynga Was Smart To Buy and Not Clone It
Its a fun game but there are some improvements I would like to see. The ability to remove players from your list, once you are in a game with some one how do you get out if they keep just writing the word instead of drawing. Also the letters at the bottom of the guessing part should be retractable to make screen grabs easier as people tend to start in the middle of the page and work down. And at the moment it could do with more words, I can guess ‘ladygaga’ before people start drawing! Although I’m sure they are adding them.