Brian Reynolds is an American videogame designer who now designs online social games. Reynolds has designed at SecretNewCo, Zynga, Big Huge Games, Firaxis Games, and MicroProse and has been chairman of the International Game Developers Association. He has played a major part in designing a number of multi-million selling games including Civilization II, Rise of Nations, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, and FrontierVille. He has also founded or co-founded three game companies, SecretNewCo, Big Huge Games, and Firaxis Games.
Christopher P. Granner is a freelance music composer, best known for composing music for video games and pinball games.
Zynga Inc. is an American social game developer running social video game services and founded in April 2007 with headquarters in San Francisco, California, United States. The company primarily focuses on mobile and social networking platforms. Zynga states its mission as "connecting the world through games."
FarmVille is a series of agriculture-simulation social network game developed and published by Zynga in 2009. It is similar to Happy Farm, and Farm Town. Its gameplay involves various aspects of farmland management, such as plowing land, planting, growing, and harvesting crops, harvesting trees and raising livestock. FarmVille 2, the sequel, was released in September 2012.
Playdom was an online social network game developer popular on Facebook, Google+ and Myspace. The company was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area by University of California, Berkeley graduates Ling Xiao and Chris Wang and Swarthmore College graduate Dan Yue. In 2009, the market for games played on social networking sites was valued at $300 million, consisting mostly of online sales of virtual goods.
OMGPop, stylised as OMGPOP and formerly known as i'minlikewithyou or iilwy, was an independent flash game studio and as of August 29, 2013, was purchased by Zynga Inc., a casual online multiplayer gaming website built in Adobe Flash.
XMG Studio was a mobile games developer based in Toronto, Canada. The company was founded by Ray Sharma in 2009. XMG has created a mixture of original IP games such as Fashion Star Boutique and Drag Racer World, and co-produced/licensed projects including Degrassi, Inspector Gadget's MAD Dash and Ghostbusters: Paranormal Blast. The company has launched games on iOS, Android and Windows Phone platforms. In 2011, XMG scouted for a partner in India.
YoWorld is a browser-based virtual world game which was released on May 8, 2008. It is currently developed by Big Viking Games. The game operates on the freemium model, and is supported through microtransactions, as well as a voluntary in-game ad program. The game itself is free-to-play, however, players can purchase in-game currencies or enroll in special programs and offers to improve their game-play experience or help them progress faster, using real money.
Supercell Oy is a Finnish mobile game development company based in Helsinki, Finland. Founded on 14 May 2010, the company's debut game was the browser game Gunshine.net, and after its release in 2011, Supercell started developing games for mobile devices. Since then, the company has fully released five mobile games: Hay Day, Clash of Clans, Boom Beach, Clash Royale, and Brawl Stars, which are freemium fast-paced games and have been very successful for the company, the first two generating revenue of €2 million a day in 2013.
CastleVille is a defunct social network game made by Zynga's Dallas studio and was released in November 2011. It combined a number of elements from the company's other "Ville" range of games. On launch it had received a million "likes" on Facebook. By the end of its first month, it had become the fifth most popular game on Facebook with 26.5 million players. The game was a freemium game, meaning there is no cost to play but players have the option of purchasing premium content.
Party Place was a virtual party simulation and social game developed by Zynga. It is the company's first 3D mobile game. Party Place launched globally December 6, 2012 for iOS and Android devices.
ironSource is a global software company backed by Carmel Ventures, a Viola Group affiliate, as well as CVC Capital Partners. The company focuses on developing technologies for app monetization and distribution, with its core products focused on the app economy.
Uken Games is an independent game studio based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The company was founded in 2009 by Chris Ye and Mark Lampert to build cross platform social and mobile games for iOS and Android. In 2011, the company was the recipient of the Digi Award for Canada’s Most Promising New Digital Company. Uken was in the top 10 of Deloitte's Fast 50 and #13 in their Fast 500 for 2014, after being one of Deloitte's "Companies-to-Watch" in 2013. Uken was certified as a Great Place to Work and was recognized as one of Canada's Top Small & Medium Employers in 2017. Uken partnered with Sony to develop Jeopardy! World Tour which was released in May 2017. Subsequently in March 2018, Uken also developed and released a second trivia title Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? which became the top trivia game on mobile.
Justin Waldron is an American internet entrepreneur known as the co-founder of Zynga, a mobile social gaming company, and Zynga.org, a non-profit organization to promote and facilitate the use of social games for philanthropic initiatives. In 2020 Waldron co-founded Playco, a mobile instant game company backed by Sequoia Capital, where he currently serves as President.
Boss Fight Entertainment is a video game development company based in Allen, Texas, with a second studio based in Austin, Texas. Boss Fight was formed by former Zynga Dallas and Ensemble Studios employees in June 2013.
Amanda Wixted is a computer game programmer and founder of Meteor Grove Software.
Mark Skaggs is an American video game producer and executive. Skaggs is known for leading the team that created the Facebook game FarmVille for Zynga, leading the team that created CityVille. He served as Executive Producer and product lead for the PC real-time strategy games Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, Command & Conquer: Generals, and The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth.
Small Giant Games is a mobile game development company based in Helsinki, Finland. It was founded in 2013 by former employees of mobile game maker Sulake. After producing two casual games, Small Giant found success with a match-three role-playing game entitled Empires and Puzzles. After the success of Empires and Puzzles, Small Giant was acquired by Zynga in December 2018.
Peak Games is a mobile gaming company based in Istanbul, Turkey. The privately-held company was acquired by Zynga in June 2020 for $1.8 billion. The company launched the games Toy Blast in 2015 and Toon Blast in 2017, both collectively have more than 12 million average mobile daily active users as of June 2020.
