Poll: What does the bwin.party Zynga partnership symbolise?
Vote now on this week's eGaming Review poll on what you think the deal means for the future of social-real money convergence.
Last week’s deal between real-money operator bwin.party and US social gaming business Zynga was arguably the clearest sign yet that the two sectors are being brought closer together.
bwin.party’s announcement earlier this year that it was to invest 40m of its own capital into developing social casino content via its new brand Win Interactive was both an indication that it believes social content, if designed well enough, can make money on various channels including Facebook and mobile, and that it had to get involved in a sector that it had previously ignored.
Zynga, meanwhile, has seen the last seven years of its development rapidly unravel in a little more than seven months. Following its stock market debut at the beginning of this year its share price has plummeted 80%, it has been forced to close a number of studios and “sunset” a number of games, while a number of its senior team have either left or been shown the door as it continues to both reduce costs and look to diversify its business model into real-money.
With that then it was perhaps not surprising that both parties have joined forces, initially only in casino and poker in the UK, but with the potential to grab further market share in other regulated markets and venture into other products at a later date.
But, what do you make of it? Is it a sign that a pure social model is no longer enough to sustain long-term revenues and a scalable business?
Will social and real-money, both with overlapping skill and mindsets, converge almost completely inside the next five years with companies operating across all platforms as single entities?
Does it symbolise a landmark deal between both companies as the US inches its way closer to regulating online poker in the short term and other verticals in the future?
Or, will this simply work initially with bwin.party and Zynga eventually pulling back from the project as the convergence from social to real-money remains as difficult as many thought?
Vote now on the eGR site on the bottom right of the homepage.