Zynga, the California gaming company led by one of British Columbia's wealthiest men, Don Mattrick, enjoyed an analyst upgrade April 22, just days after releasing a version of its most popular game, FarmVille, on mobile devices.
The company (Nasdaq:ZNGA) is set to release its first quarter earnings report April 23.
Morgan Stanley analyst John Egbert upgraded the money-losing company to "equal weight" from "underweight" on April 22 and pinned part of the reason on the company last week launching FarmVille 2: Country Escape for mobile devices.
Zynga shot to prominence in 2009 when it released FarmVille on Facebook (Nasdaq:FB) and then FarmVille 2 in 2012.
FarmVille, which was once the most popular game on Facebook, is free to play. To progress quickly within FarmVille, however, players are encouraged to spend virtual currencies such as "farm cash" or, in FarmVille 2, "farm bucks" – both of which are purchasable with real-world currency.
Similar things take place in other Zynga games, such as CityVille.
Analysts expect Mattrick's company to lose US$263.6 million compared with $147.5 million a year ago.
Mattrick joined Zynga in July 2013 after leaving Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqMSFT), where he had led the company's EAD division (which includes Xbox) for six years.
With Jeff Sember, Mattrick co-founded Distinctive Software, Inc. (DSI) in 1982 when he was 17 years old. Electronic Arts Inc. (Nasdaq:EA) then bought DSI for $11 million – $782,900 in cash and the rest in stock – in 1991.
Mattrick then built EA Sports into a market leader with cutting edge game development in Burnaby until Microsoft lured him away in 2005.
Married to Telemedia scion Nanon de Gaspé Beaubien Mattrick, he continues to own a 16,000-square-foot home in Vancouver's west side that was described last year in Fast Company as the largest in B.C.
