Zynga chief Don Mattrick steers the struggling social game publisher into a mobile future (interview)

Don Mattrick knows that no quick-fix scenario exists for Zynga. When he took the job as chief executive of the social game publisher a year ago, he promised a multiquarter turnaround process. Now, after the company reported weaker-than-expected earnings last quarter, it looks like the turnaround will take even longer. Zynga is taking its lumps with investors, warning that it will have tough quarters ahead.

Zynga’s market value is about $2.55 billion, down from $5.1 billion back in March and $9 billion at the time of its initial public offering in 2011. The company has been trying to make a shift from Facebook to mobile, and it has finally gotten more bookings on mobile versus the Web. But it held back on worldwide launches for its revamped Zynga Poker and Words With Friends mobile games. This hurt quarterly performance, and it also shifts revenue from 2014 to 2015.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.