Zynga Game Network Inc.

Bummer's Almanac: Predicting 2013

Gung Ho Now Serving Lunch and Dinner in the Design District

The other day we stopped into the Design District's new Gung Ho, a casual "San Francisco-style Asian" restaurant across the street from the fortress of Zynga. It's the first brick-and-mortar from Seoul Patch pop-up chef Eric Ehler, and we predict it will be insanely popular with the office lunch and ... More >>

Virtual Robert Irvine is Coming to Rescue Your ChefVille Restaurant From Disaster

Robert Irvine, the Food Network's answer to shouty chef Gordon Ramsay, will be making a two-week virtual appearance starting today in Zynga's new Facebook game, ChefVille. According to the press release, "Irvine will face his biggest challenge yet as he helps ChefVille players enhance their in-game ... More >>

Investing in Buzz Is a Loser's Game

There will likely never again be anything quite like the dotcom boom-and-bust of the late '90s. But that doesn't mean that everybody learned their lesson about investing in companies with questionable business models -- or at least in those with outsized expectations for growth. It only means that t ... More >>

Top 5 Free Food-Related Games for Your Smartphone or Tablet

Food games have come a long way since we were shooting bison on the Oregon Trail. A few days ago SFoodie shared the news that Zynga has released ChefVille, a new Facebook game where you can build your own restaurant, cook recipes for friends, and take cooking lessons. We're not social gamers, but we ... More >>

Zynga Releases ChefVille, the Video Game That Could Be Your Next Obsession

Today, San Francisco game titan Zynga announces the release of a new game called ChefVille, the latest in the internationally successful and addictive Ville series that also includes FarmVille, CityVille, and FrontierVille. Rather than just being a game with a single-minded objective, ChefVille has ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

Today, San Francisco game titan Zynga announces the release of a new game called ChefVille, the latest in the internationally successful and addictive Ville series that also includes FarmVille, CityVille, and FrontierVille. Rather than just being a game with a single-minded objective, ChefVille has ... More >>

Berkeley's Annie's Homegrown Goes Public, Rakes in Cash

​If decades-old boxes of Annie's Homegrown Macaroni and Cheese were the equivalent of stock shares, nearly every person reading this would be just a little bit wealthier today. As the San Jose Mercury News reported, yesterday Berkeley's own little natural food behemoth began trading shares on the ... More >>

Hacker Group Anonymous Takes Up Arms in SOPA Battle

​The "hacktivist" network known as Anonymous has stepped into the fray in the battle among legacy media companies, Internet firms, and politicians over the federal Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).The controversial proposed legislation would make it more difficult for websites to display pirated cont ... More >>

Brazilian Gaming Company Vostu Settles Lawsuit with Zynga

​It's been a tough fall for social-gaming company Zynga, what with plenty of bad press and an IPO valuation that came in at less than half of what some had expected. But today's news cycle offers one piece of positive information: Zynga has apparently resolved its lawsuit against Brazilian gaming ... More >>

Will Tech IPOs Drive Hyper-Gentrification of Southern Neighborhoods?

​The dot-com boom and bust of the late 1990s left an indelible mark on the southeastern portion of San Francisco. SOMA, a neighborhood formerly known for furniture warehouses, nightclubs and a few leather bars, rapidly morphed into a landscape of tony condos, loft spaces, and stylishly lit bars -- ... More >>

Is Zynga's 'Evil' Corporate Culture Now a Business Liability?

Doing evil?​In a business sector known for cutthroat, amoral maneuvering, social-game developer Zynga stands out as, well, particularly cutthroat and amoral. At least that's the view of many of its competitors and former employees, some of whom we interviewed for a September 2010 SF Weekly cover s ... More >>

Google, Facebook, Others Fight Legislation to Stop Online Content Piracy

​A veritable who's who of major tech firms in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley are fighting federal legislation aimed at putting a stop to theft of original content online.The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) would allow content creators to seek court orders barring internet service providers, se ... More >>

Zynga Pressures Employees to Give Back Stock Ahead of IPO

Mark Pincus​Social-gaming company Zynga, along with a handful of other large tech businesses, was successful earlier this year in getting the city of San Francisco to forgo its share of tax revenue on the firm's stock options. Now it appears that wasn't enough: Zynga CEO Mark Pincus has reportedly ... More >>

Twitter Preens Itself Over $800 Million Funding Boost

Twitter​Twitter has good reason to be chirpy today -- the company just received an estimated $800 million in funding, raising its value to $8 billion. The funding came from both old investors and new investor Digital Sky Technologies, a prominent investment company run by Russian billionaire Y ... More >>

Pop-Up Wine Special: Only for SFoodie Readers

Cameron Hughes, the man, and Cameron Hughes, the wines​Planning to write about pairing wine with roast chicken, I went back through months of tasting notes looking for the right Chardonnay: Great flavor, great price. It turned out to be a Chilean Chardonnay imported by San Francisco negociant ... More >>

Zynga, Vostu, SocialApps: Are Legal Squabbles Signs of the Social Gaming Apocalypse?

Drought years ahead?​Zynga has always been the target of various allegations of pirating other companies' ideas, but in the last week, tech-world buzz on the twin topics of Zynga and copyright infringement has risen to a deafening level. Last Thursday, Zynga filed a lawsuit against Brazilian game ... More >>

Zynga Has a Hit with 'Empires and Allies'

Empires and Allies allows users to build cities and go to war​Zynga's latest Facebook game, Empires and Allies, is being closely watched. Tech-industry observers see the combat and city-building game as a gambit by the successful social-game developer to expand its offerings beyond the breathtakin ... More >>

Empires and Allies, New Zynga Game, Launches Today

Helllllooo, Scarlett​Zynga is launching its new online game today on Facebook, and it promises to have, well, a little more game. What that means is you can expect Empires and Allies to involve combat, which is straying from Zynga's typical nonviolent style which you will find in games like FarmVi ... More >>

Lady Gaga Continues War Against Boring, Puts Fear Of Christ Into "American Idol" Contestants

Bringing the exotic to the mundane -- and staying cool. How does Gaga do it?​This week, Lady Gaga proved she could take any old rotten lemons thrown at her and make delicious lemonade out of them, by appearing on American Idol as a guest mentor. Which, frankly, we thought was a tad beneath her. Es ... More >>

NIMBYs Blocking Civic Improvement Is Sad S.F. Tradition

Bringing the exotic to the mundane -- and staying cool. How does Gaga do it?​This week, Lady Gaga proved she could take any old rotten lemons thrown at her and make delicious lemonade out of them, by appearing on American Idol as a guest mentor. Which, frankly, we thought was a tad beneath her. Es ... More >>

Lady Gaga to Stream Songs on Her Own Version of FarmVille: Dear God Please No

FarmVilleFreak.comA glimpse of the future?​ Stefani Germanotta just killed us a little. Germanotta, aka Lady Gaga, plans to release streams of songs off her new album, Born This Way, via a new online game, GagaVille, made by S.F. firm Zynga, of FarmVille fame. You will have to compete to pre ... More >>

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan Crosses Bay Bridge to Poach from San Francisco

Says the weather in Oakland is ... magical​Last week, we gave you a rundown of San Jose's inferiority complex -- how badly does it want to be San Francisco? While lawmakers in the South Bay stoop to low levels as they try to poach Twitter away from us, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan is doing a little pre ... More >>

Lady Gaga Gives More Than $1 Million to Zynga's Japan Fundraiser

Well, she does have a lot of money ​You don't have to be a Lady Gaga fan to agree on this: The pop star is very generous with her money. The singer, who turns 25 today, has reportedly donated $1.5 million to a fundraiser hosted by San Francisco-based Zynga -- with all the money going to help earth ... More >>

Zynga-Hired Advertiser to Pay City $45,000 for Illegal Guerrilla Marketing

Meyer Lansky would not be impressed.​The company hired by San Francisco-based social game developer Zynga to promote one of its games has agreed to pay the city $45,000 in fines for illegal marketing tactics, City Attorney Dennis Herrera announced today.Back in August, the city attorney's office w ... More >>

Watch A Geek Beatdown For A Good Cause Tonight at the Rock It Room

Anthony Ha, Anthony Ha. Six foot twenty, fucking killing for fun​If you're anything like me, all this talk of online competition and antitrust legislation and techno-corporate hierarchies has really whetted your taste for blood. Well, we're in luck tonight, thanks to the Tech Beat Up: a charity ev ... More >>

Zynga Scams Lawsuit to Move Forward

Treacherous ground?​A federal judge has found that Zynga is responsible for allegedly misleading business offers marketed to players of its popular Facebook games, setting the stage for a class-action lawsuit against the San Francisco-based company to move ahead.The plaintiff in the case, Rebecca ... More >>

Zynga Faces Class-Action Lawsuit over Alleged Privacy Breach

Life on the farm is never dull for long​No matter what they do, some companies seem chronically incapable of playing peacefully in the sandbox of American capitalism with others. San Francisco-based game developer Zynga -- the wildly successful firm behind such popular Facebook applications as&nbs ... More >>

FrontierVille, Latest Zynga Release, Is Quickly Losing Users

That little bastard might not be smiling for long​One of the issues raised in our September cover story on social-gaming company Zynga was the long-term viability of a business based on copying and aggressively marketing inane but addictive game concepts. The Facebook applications that are making ... More >>

Deflating the Social Media Hot Air Balloon

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: Not a revolutionary​Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, and their ilk -- standard bearers for the ill-defined phenomenon known as "social media" that is now supposed to be the future of the Web -- are having a tough time these days in the thinking person's press.Over the past f ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: Not a revolutionary​Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, and their ilk -- standard bearers for the ill-defined phenomenon known as "social media" that is now supposed to be the future of the Web -- are having a tough time these days in the thinking person's press.Over the past f ... More >>

'Halo: Reach' Earns $200 Million, Shows Console Games Are Still Big Business

Still printing money, it seems​One of the more vivid side discussions provoked by our story last week on social-gaming company Zynga's allegedly predatory business practices was about the merits of Zynga-style games. The company specializes in Facebook apps that entice users to compulsively build ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

Still printing money, it seems​One of the more vivid side discussions provoked by our story last week on social-gaming company Zynga's allegedly predatory business practices was about the merits of Zynga-style games. The company specializes in Facebook apps that entice users to compulsively build ... More >>

Zynga Offers Customers Who Waste Their Lives Playing Its Games Up to $24,000 Today

Today, FarmVille crops yield real cash​It ain't been a great week in the press for Zynga, the San Francisco-based creator of popular online games such as FarmVille. Last Wednesday we published a cover story in which ex-employees dished on Zynga's allegedly "evil" practice of copying competitors' g ... More >>

FarmVillains

Steal someone else's game. Change its name. Make millions. Repeat.

Former Zynga Employees Talk About Copying Games for Mark Pincus' 'Evil' Online Empire

The latest SF Weekly cover story explores Zynga's culture of game-copying​Zynga's cutthroat business practices have long been a subject of speculation in the social-gaming industry. The company behind such hit Facebook applications as FarmVille and Mafia Wars has, in the words of a recent tradem ... More >>

Zynga Mafia Wars Stickers Prompt City Attorney to Go to the Mattresses

Yes, money is power. But having the Unfair Competition Law at your disposal is power, too.​San Francisco's city attorney has decided that money is not enough to compensate for ad firm Davis Elen plastering 4,000 Zynga Mafia Wars stickers onto San Francisco sidewalks. And, unless ad executives agre ... More >>

Zynga Sued over 'Mafia Wars' Trademark by Digital Chocolate: Read the Lawsuit Here

Who says a war is bad for business?​San Francisco-based social-gaming company Zynga is being sued for alleged trademark infringement over its popular Facebook game, Mafia Wars.Digital Chocolate, another online gaming company, claims in a lawsuit filed in federal court that it owns rights to the na ... More >>

Zynga Off the Hook for Mafia Wars Vandalism, S.F. City Attorney Says

​It looks like Zynga is not going to face legal or financial consequences for alleged sidewalk vandalism carried out as part of a marketing campaign for the San Francisco-based company's new online game, Mafia Wars: Las Vegas.Instead, according to Matt Dorsey, spokesman for San Francisco City Atto ... More >>

Zynga Fingers Ad Agency for Alleged 'Mafia Wars' Sidewalk Vandalism

The city attorney sends his regards...​We reported here yesterday on accusations against social-gaming company Zynga by the San Francisco City Attorney's office. The city is ready to go to the mattresses over alleged vandalism of city property carried out as part of an advertising campaign by the ... More >>

Zynga in Hot Water with San Francisco City Attorney Over 'Mafia Wars' Marketing

Dennis Herrera is taking off the gloves over Zynga's 'Mafia Wars'​The San Francisco City Attorney's office is going after social-gaming company Zynga -- maker of such popular Facebook applications as FarmVille and Mafia Wars -- for what it calls an "illegal and actionable" marketing campaign to pr ... More >>