社交游戏新兴公司Zynga的估值是否真的超越了传统视频游戏巨头Electronic Arts（EA）？

二手市场SharesPost认为目前社交游戏公司Zynga的估值大约为52亿7000万美元。与之相比，位于加利福尼亚州红木城的EA公司在Nasdaq证券市场的上市交易价值是52亿4000万美元。SharesPost对Zynga的估值略高于EA公司，尽管SharesPost对Zynga的估值并不算精准，但也是目前估量Zynga股份价值的唯一途径。现在许多人希望Zynga公司股票上市，但目前该公司尚未有此计划。

企业家Mark Pincus（下图中）在四年前成立了Zynga公司开发Facebook应用。从Texas Hold Em Poker开始，Zynga公司旗下游戏吸引了大量Facebook用户，并运用各种方法从少数付费玩家身上盈利。通过采用由韩国Nexon公司率先在网络游戏中提出的“虚拟商品”商业模式，Zynga用游戏虚拟货币换取玩家的现实货币，玩家可用虚拟货币购买扑克筹码等各种Zynga游戏道具。据Inside Network预计，今年zynga在虚拟商品销售的营收可能占2010年16亿的虚拟商品市场的三分之一。

Zynga

Zynga公司真正的迅速发展其实是在2009年发行社交游戏FarmVille之后，目前该款游戏仍以5740万月活跃用户量稳居Facebook游戏排行榜第一位。这些热门社交游戏为Zynga采用跨平台和广告等宣传方式奠定了基础，从而促进了Zynga其他游戏的流行。除了Texas Hold Em Poker和FarmVille，Zynga旗下的FrontierVille, Mafia Wars, Cafe World, Treasure Isle和PetVille等游戏玩家数也超过了1000万。Zynga公司合计有玩家2亿1450万。

在社交游戏开发公司之中，与Zynga差距巨大的CrowdStar公司以5420万的月活跃用户数量排名第二，而排名第三的则是有4470万用户的Electronic Arts（EA）。然而以上数据经常波动巨大，今年春天由于Facebook关闭病毒式传播，上述社交游戏开发公司的玩家数也都明显减少。2009年秋，EA以4亿美元收购了社交游戏公司Playfish，但这并没能缩小其与Zynga的巨大差距。

今年，EA的市场价值有所降低，失去了“最大独立视频游戏开发商”的头衔（开发著名网游《魔兽世界》的暴雪公司继承了这一头衔）。但EA公司对进军网络游戏领域并没有懈怠。今年，EA数字在线商业计划创下7亿5000万美元盈收，即该公司年年收入的20%。这意味着EA网络游戏的收入要远多于Zynga的网络游戏收入（同样也是Zynga公司的全部年收入）。

然而市场估值真的认为Zynga与EA几乎等值？市场是不是低估了EA在传统视频游戏和电脑游戏领域近30亿的年收入？ 如果是这样，Zynga的确被高估了。

更有趣的是，有人将Zynga与其社交游戏市场的头号劲敌——日本DeNA相比较。DeNa在日本社交手机游戏市场实力雄厚。最近DeNa出以4亿美元高价收购了iPhone游戏发行商Ngmoco。目前，DeNA在日本的市场资金约为36亿美元，而该公司自己透露的年收入则大约是10亿美元（Zynga并没有透露公司的年收入）。因此，DeNA在年收入上很可能多于Zynga。这样一来，Zynga在这场比较中也同样被高估了。此外也有人将Zynga与目前估值130亿美元的 Activision Blizzard（暴雪公司）相比较。

那么，Zynga是不是还不值现在二手市场所支付的价格？也许是的。但毋庸置疑的是Zynga现在在游戏市场拥有不可撼动的地位。考虑到EA公司成立至今已经28年，而Zynga经过短短4年的经营就取得今日的成绩是十分了不起的。市场对Zynga的估值不仅仅是考察该公司的营收状态，同时也将其在社交游戏市场快速的发展动力列入了考量范围。EA公司并不具备这种发展动力，而日本DeNA虽然在日本社交手机游戏市场具有一定大发展动力，但该公司在美国社交游戏市场才刚刚起步。（本文由游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译）

Zynga is currently valued at $5.27 billion on SharesPost, a secondary market, where Zynga employees can sell shares that they own in the private company. Redwood City, Calif.-based EA is worth $5.24 billion in public trading on the Nasdaq stock market. The SharesPost listings are thinly traded compared to EA’s stock, but it is perhaps the only real measure of the value of Zynga’s stock at any given moment. Many hope that Zynga will go public, but it hasn’t done so yet.

Serial entrepreneur Mark Pincus (pictured in center) started Zynga four years ago to make Facebook applications. Starting with Texas Hold Em Poker, Zynga managed to grab lots of users on Facebook and figured out how to make money from a small percentage of them. Adopting the “virtual goods” business model pioneered by South Korea’s Nexon for online games, Zynga charged real money to players for virtual currency, which was used to buy poker chips and other virtual goods in Zynga games. Now, thanks to virtual goods sales, Zynga is expected to grab roughly a third of the $1.6 billion market for virtual goods in the U.S. in 2010, according to Inside Network.

Zynga really took off in the middle of 2009 when it launched FarmVille, which is still the No. 1 game on Facebook with 57.4 million monthly active users, according to AppData. With such popular market-leading games, Zynga can cross-promote its titles and advertise them as well, allowing it to turn lots of its games into huge hits. In addition to FarmVille and Texas Hold Em Poker, FrontierVille, Mafia Wars, Cafe World, Treasure Isle and PetVille all have more than 10 million users. Overall, Zynga has 214.5 million users.

CrowdStar is a distant No. 2 at 54.2 million monthly active users, and EA is No. 3 at 44.7 million users. These numbers fluctuate dramatically and are all down since Facebook cracked down on game message spam in the spring. EA bought Playfish for $400 million in the fall of 2009, but it hasn’t been able to close the gap against Zynga, which has been No. 1 for a long time.

EA’s market value has dropped this year. The company lost its title as the largest independent maker of video games to Activision Blizzard, which has titles such as World of Warcraft to fuel its growth. But EA is no slouch when it comes to online games. Digital online businesses at EA are expected to generate $750 million in revenue in the current fiscal year, or around 20 percent of overall revenue. That means EA’s online game revenue is significantly bigger than Zynga’s online game revenue (which, of course, is all of Zynga’s revenue).

Yet the market values Zynga as equal to EA in market share? Does this mean the market discounts the rest of EA’s nearly $3 billion or so in traditional video game console and PC game revenues? If so, then Zynga is truly overvalued.

It’s also interesting to compare Zynga’s value to one of its arch rivals in the social game market, Japan’s DeNA. DeNA has come on strong in the Japanese social mobile game market. It recently outbid Zynga to buy iPhone game publisher Ngmoco for $400 million. DeNA’s market capitalization in Japan is around $3.6 billion. But the company says its revenue run rate is currently around $1 billion. So DeNA’s revenue is likely bigger than Zynga’s (Zynga does not disclose its number). So Zynga’s stock is overvalued by that comparison as well. Yet another comparision: Activision Blizzard is valued at more than $13 billion.

Does that mean Zynga isn’t worth the current price people are paying on the secondary market? Perhaps. But there’s no question Zynga is at the center of the storm and has one of the most enviable positions in the game market today. That’s a remarkable achievement, considering EA is more than 28 years old and Zynga is less than four. Zynga’s valuation is not based on current revenues alone, but on its momentum in a fast-growing market. EA doesn’t have that momentum. And DeNA has momentum in the fast-growing social mobile game market in Japan, but it is only getting starting in social games in the U.S. （Source：VentureBeat）