Zynga plans more big-money aquisitions

Zynga plans to make more OMGPOP style purchases, the social game company has revealed.

OMGPOP was purchased for a whopping $180 million, but Zynga CEO Mark Pincus says his company won’t be stopping there, and plans a "few" more deals of that size.

"We love finding great, accomplished teams that share our mission and vision,” Pincus told Bloomberg.

“If we ever see breakout opportunities that massively accelerate social gaming at Zynga, we’ll aggressively pursue those, too.” 

Sources in the company claim that Angry Birds creator Rovio rejected a two billion dollar offer from Zynga, and that Rovio was itself a competitor in the aquisition of OMGPOP.

According to Nabeel Hyatt, who sold Conduit Labs Inc. to Zynga in 2010, this represents a major change of strategy for Zynga, which has always stuck to purchasing smaller, more unknown studios.

“The mandate for Barry is to go acquire not just teams, but products that are having an impact in the market,” he said, speaking of Barry Cottle, a former EA executive who is heading up Zynga’s aquisitions team.

“That’s a whole new ballgame at Zynga. It’s a different skill, and we will see how good Zynga is at it.”