Zynga makes it through 2014 with wounds, but focused on the battle for mobile

Zynga is in the red and today shuttered its Beijing studio, but in the long term CEO Don Mattrick expects the company to make it over the hump into its full-on transition into a mobile studio.

That transition is essential, as the company that once crested the wave of web-based social games is currently struggling, losing $2.45 million in last three months of 2014. It also failed to make Wall Street's expectations for the quarter: Analysts expected the company to generate $201 million in sales (called "bookings," in industry parlance). Zynga only hit $182 million. 

Still, it's not all bad news: Mobile accounted for 60 percent of total bookings for the quarter, and monthly mobile consumers were up 87 percent year-on-year. The company's goal is to hit 75 percent mobile bookings by the end of 2015.

"I am excited by the boldness of our 2015 product aspirations – this year we expect to launch between six to 10 new games in important categories like match-3 and action strategy," Mattrick said in a statement.

Backed by 2014 acquisition NaturalMotion, which it picked up for $527 million, the company has plans to take on the giants of the mobile game space head-to-head with new launches in 2015, as Zynga prepares entries in popular genres.

A FarmVille-themed match-3 game is on the way. So is a mobile version of social network strategy game Empires & Allies. Significant is NaturalMotion's action-strategy game Dawn of Titans. The strategy genre is currently white-hot on mobile, and Zynga expects NaturalMotion's graphics tech to give Dawn of Titans an edge against its competitors.