Timeline: A chronology of the life of Zynga

July 4, 2011 Filing shows Zynga plans to diversify beyond Amazon with its own data centers.

July 1, 2011 Zynga files to raise $1 billion in an IPO. Filing shows Zynga raised $845 million in three rounds over four years.

June 28, 2011 — Wall Street Journal reports Zynga preparing to file for IPO.

June 26, 2011Empires & Allies tops FarmVille in 25 days.

June 16, 2011 — Zynga sues Brazilian firm Vostu over copyright infringement for alleged copycat games.

June 15, 2011CityVille Hometown launched on mobile.

June 3, 2011 — EA’s No. 2 executive John Schappert joins Zynga as chief operating officer.

March 28, 2011 — Zynga raises $3 million for Japan quake victims.

February 2011 — Zynga raises round at $10 billion valuation.

Feb. 2, 2011 — Zynga takes Words With Friends game to Android mobile phones.

Jan. 24, 2011 — Zynga threatens lawsuit against Blingville for using “ville” in name.

June 1, 2011 — Zynga launches Empires & Allies.

Jan. 14, 2011 — CityVille hits 100 million users after 43 days. It is the fastest-growing game of all time in numbers of users.

Dec. 31, 2010 — Zynga’s revenues hit $597.4 million and net income is $90.5 million. Zynga has 1,483 employees.

Dec. 24, 2010 — CityVille becomes bigger than FarmVille, with more than 58 million users.

Dec. 2, 2010 — Zynga says it has acquired Texas-based mobile game publisher Newtoy. Price is later revealed to be $53.3 million. Zynga launches CityVille.

Nov. 30, 2010 — Zynga shuts Street Racing game.

Nov. 29, 2010 — Zynga cuts a deal with American Express to redeem virtual goods with credit card points.

Nov. 16, 2010 — Billionaire investor John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins says Zynga is “our best company ever.”

Oct. 26, 2010 — Zynga shares trading on secondary markets value the company at $5 billion, more than the value of Electronic Arts.

Oct. 5, 2010 — Zynga buys Bonfire Studios and renames it Zynga Dallas

Sept. 27, 2010 — Zynga signs one of the biggest leases in recent San Francisco history, taking over old Sega building with space to house thousands of employees.

Sept. 8, 2010 — SF Weekly runs story on FarmVillains, about how Zynga copied the games of rivals to get to the top.

September, 2010 — Zynga has 1,200 employees.

Aug. 25, 2010 — Digital Chocolate sues Zynga over Mafia Wars trademark.

Aug. 11, 2010 — FarmVille pulled from MSN.com.

August 4, 2010 — In its first foray into Japan, Zynga buys Unoh in Tokyo.

July 27, 2010 — Disney buys Zynga’s rival Playdom for up to $763.2 million. That suggests that Zynga is worth even more than that.

July 28, 2010 — Softbank confirms $150 million investment in Zynga as the company expands its social games in Japan.

June 9, 2010Zynga launches FrontierVille, the first game from Zynga East and chief game designer Brian Reynolds.

June 3, 2010 — Zynga buys Challenge Games.

May 24, 2010 — Mike Arrington and Bing Gordon describe the clash over Facebook Credits as the Cuban Missile Crisis of tech.

May 18, 2010 — Zynga and Facebook announce five-year deal in which Zynga agrees to support Facebook Credits on an exclusive basis. Zynga will pay 30 percent of its game transactions to Facebook.

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.