[GG] Activision Blizzard, Nexon, EA To Report Q1 Financials This Week

Three of the world’s largest gaming companies by net corporate worth, Electronic Arts Inc. (EA:US), Activision Blizzard Inc. (ATVI:US), and Nexon Co. Ltd (3659:JP) are set to report their first quarter for the 2012 calendar year earnings on May 7, May 9 and May 10, respectively. EA has a net worth of $5 billion, Activision Blizzard a net worth of $13,9 billion and Nexon a net worth of $7.9 billion. The reports for all of these huge companies which all have a special connection to me will be posted on the Msupdate Blog, with Nexon’s being the most covered.

Zynga Inc. (ZNGA:US), with a net worth of $6.1 billion, reported first quarter revenues of an internal record $321 million and 182 million monthly active players to its social games.

Both Zynga and Nexon went public last December with $1 billion and  $1.2 billion initial public offerings.

For the 2011 calendar year Activision Blizzard reported revenues of $4.8 billion. Nexon reported revenues of $1.2 billion. EA reported revenues of $3.8 billion. Zynga reported revenues of $1.1 billion.

Keep posted!

[GG] Elite game group recruits board members from the new guard at Nexon and Zynga

An interesting read.

From VentureBeat

The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciencesis an elite professional game group that puts on the annual Dice Summit gaming event Las Vegas and selects the winners for the equivalent of the game industry’s Oscar winners. So it is interesting that the academy is adding two new board members from Nexon and Zynga.

Min Kim, vice president of Live Games at Nexon, and Brian Reynolds (pictured right), chief game designer at Zynga, have joined the board of the AIAS. The appointments signal that the game industry has changed and the AIAS is changing with it. And it means that the makers of social and online games, once considered the second-class citizens of gaming, now have a seat at the board table.

[ZGA] Zynga Down 5% On First Day

Zynga has followed Nexon with a disappointing debut day of trading, closing down 5% on the first day of trading after the company’s initial public offering. Stock prices fell from their debut of $10.00 to $9.50 a share at the end of trading. Unlike Nexon, however, Zynga has gone public on the United States’ NASDAQ, while Nexon went public on Japan’s Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Zynga currently has over 2,200 employees and published over 24 games which reach over 150,000,000 active users a month. Zynga’s IPO raised $1 billion for the company and the company is valued at approximately $7 billion. This makes it the largest internet-based IPO in North America since Google in 2004.

This compares with Nexon’s 3,500 employees as of September 2011, 57 games, 77,000,000 active users per month, $1.2 billion raised in their IPO and Nexon’s approximate company value of $8 billion. Nexon’s IPO is Japan’s largest for 2011 and the second largest internet-based IPO in the world this year.

Zynga’s 2010 revenue was $600 million while Nexon’s 2010 revenue was $878 million.

Zynga mainly focuses on the developing and publishing of social network games while Nexon has recently been aggressively exploring, experimenting and investing in social network games and the social network space. It is suspected that the poor start for both of these companies on the public scene might be due to investors believing that the social gaming market might be saturating. But mind you not, I expect a bright future for the trading of both Zynga and Nexon!