Farmville, Mafia Wars | featured news

Zynga, the creator of FarmVille, Words With Friends and Mafia Wars, announced a new gaming platform on Thursday that will match up players who do not know each other.

Zynga Inc., the largest maker of games for Facebook, declined in its first day of trading after raising $1 billion in an initial public offering that gave it a greater valuation than rival Electronic Arts Inc. The shares, listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol ZNGA, fell 5 percent to $9.50. The developer of games such as “CityVille,” “FarmVille” and “Mafia Wars” sold 100 million shares for $10 each, the top end of a proposed range.

While some of us might be willing to pay to make Facebook games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars go away, it appears that Wall Street has other ideas.

Social gaming startup Zynga is seeing some impressive traction. It now boats 129 million monthly active users across its portfolio of more than 30 games, according to both Inside Facebook's AppData(see chart) and Developer Analytics.