Zynga Expands, Buys Draw Something Maker

Zynga purchased the maker of the popular social-networking game, <I>Draw Something</I> for a reported $200 million.

Author:: Chris Ciaccia
Publish date:: Mar 21, 2012 4:00 PM EDT

NEW YORK (

TheStreet

) -

Zynga

(ZNGA) - Get Report

is expanding its business model, and trying to move past depending solely on

Facebook

, by announcing it will purchase the maker of the

Draw Something

game,

OMGPOP



Zynga announced it would be buying OMGPOP

AllThingsD

first reported that a deal between the two companies was complete for a reported $200 million. Official terms of the deal were not released.

"The OMGPOP team has created a game that's fun, expressive and engenders real social interaction," said Zynga CEO and founder Mark Pincus in a

press release.

"Draw Something has captured the imagination of millions of people around the world. We love the way they've worked playful and relevant culture into their games from Devo to Daft Punk, from Lin to Beckham. We're honored to have the opportunity to partner with and support such an innovative team of creative inventors."

Zynga has been looking to get away from its dependency on Facebook. It recently launched its own portal

Zynga.com

, so users will not have to log onto Facebook when they are on the Internet to play the company's games.

In Zynga's

S-1 filing

last year, the company specifically mentioned its relationship with Facebook as a primary risk factor. "We generate substantially all of our revenue and players through the Facebook platform and expect to continue to do so for the foreseeable future," it said. This could be a move to try diversify beyond the social-networking giant.

Draw Something

has become immensely popular, and is the most downloaded app on the

Apple

(AAPL) - Get Report

App Store, in both the paid and free categories. There are reportedly over 20 million downloads of

Draw Something

from the App Store. Over 35 million people have downloaded the app, and more than 1 billion drawings have been created in the last week, according to the press release. It is the number one word game in 84 countries according to the Apple App Store.

This is not the first acquisition Zynga has made to expand its games offering. The company also bought

Newtoy

, the company behind

Words with Friends

two years ago.

Zynga went public

in late 2011, as did fellow social networker

Groupon

(GRPN) - Get Report

Shares of Zynga are higher in Wednesday trading, up 2.46% to $13.72.

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