Zynga is unveiling a new version of Words With Friends for mobile users. The effort is part of a strategy to win back consumers on mobile and make sure that competitors don’t eat away at one of its biggest audiences for a social game.
Words With Friends on a smartphone.
Zynga’s Words With Friends team has been toiling on the redesign under direction of new chief executive Don Mattrick (see our interview) and new chief operating officer Clive Downie. The developer wants to win back market share in mobile titles and keep competitors at bay. Hence, Zynga is OK with doing a major update on one of the world’s most successful game franchises.
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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.
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