Zynga stocks nosedive after a disappointing quarter

Things didn't go too well for Zynga in its most recent fiscal quarter. While the company's revenue increased year over year, its figures fell far below estimates as it struggled to grow its social game business. Before Zynga announced its earnings Wednesday afternoon, Wall Street expected Zynga to pull in roughly $344 million. Instead, the company saw revenues of $332.5 million. While that's still an increase of 19 percent year over year, the company posted a loss of nearly $23 million, causing investors to bail and Zynga's stock to plummet roughly 40 percent in after hours trading. Zynga says it suffered during its second quarter because its daily bookings per average daily player fell from $0.051 to $0.046 year over year, meaning users are paying less when they're playing Zynga's games. Its monthly active users, meanwhile, increased to 306 million, up slightly from 292 million in the prior quarter. Overall, the company's bookings reached $301.6 million. That's a 10 percent increase from the second quarter in 2011, but an 8 percent decline compared to the first quarter of 2012. Zynga CEO Mark Pincus said the company saw its bookings decline in part because of some recent changes to the Facebook platform hurt that user engagement. He added that the company also suffered because it launched its major Facebook game, The Ville, later than originally expected. Zynga also lowered its outlook for the rest of 2012, as the company has reduced its expectations for Draw Something -- the Omgpop-developed title that it paid $210 million to acquire earlier this year. One a more positive note, two of the company's newest games, The Ville and Bubble Safari, have performed well since their launch, and currently boast than 6 million daily players each.