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Zynga Picks Up Developer Team

Eying female consumes, Zynga has hired team behind Wild Needle, a lady-focused casual games company that was backed by Playdom co-founder Rick Thompson. Word is that this was a talent-sized deal, which is in line with most Zynga acquisitions. “Zynga usually does smaller deals in the $5 million to 20 million range for teams of game developers,” TechCrunch reports. “But it has bumped up spending over the last year and a half, as the value of Zynga’s equity has become priced in and even declined over the last year.”

OMGPOP, for one, took all cash in its $180 million acquisition. Another small developer Zynga picked up recently was GameDoctors, which makes Zombie Smash. Despite its talented staff, Wild Needle appears to have had little success in the casual game space, so far failing to create a category hit. Meanwhile, as TechCrunch notes, Wild Needle is Playdom co-founder Rick Thompson’s second exit in the past month after another company he backed, Funzio, got picked up by GREE for $210 million. 

 

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