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Betting the farm
押宝开心农场（美版）

Zynga may be a good business, but the tech bubble is expanding
Zynga可能是一家好企业，但是科技泡沫却正愈演愈烈

Jun 30th 2011 | from the print edition

PLAYERS of FarmVille, an online game, raise virtual chickens on an imaginary farm. Yet they are happy to swap real money for virtual money to buy virtual farm tools. And investors are likely to pay more than chicken feed for shares in Zynga, the firm that makes FarmVille and other online games.

在一款名叫农场物语（美版的开心农场FarmVille）的在线游戏中，玩家可以在农场中养鸡，当然这些鸡和农场都是虚拟的。然而玩家们仍然乐此不疲的用真正的钱去购买虚拟的农具。至于投资者也很可能会向这款游戏的开发商Zynga公司注资入股，当然作为多款在线游戏的开发商，投资者愿意给其股份开出的价格可要比鸡的饲料价格高。

Zynga is expected to file soon for an initial public offering (IPO). Analysts predict that the firm will be valued at between $15 billion and $20 billion. That is about as much as the world’s two biggest video-game makers (Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard) combined.

据估计，Zynga很快将提交IPO（首次公开募股）的申请。分析师预计，这家公司的市值将在150亿美元到200亿美元之间。如果这样的话，Zynga市值将差不多相当于电子艺界(Electronic Arts)以及Activision Blizzard这两家全世界最大的电子游戏公司的市值总和。

More than 271m people play Zynga’s games at least once a month, and the firm said in March that it expects to make a profit this year of $630m on revenues of $1.8 billion. So its business is more real than those of some other online firms. But it is not something a sober investor would bet the farm on. Users may tire of virtual vegetables and online Mafia Wars (another popular Zynga game). Rivals are straining to grab Zynga’s players. Electronic Arts, Playdom and Wooga have only about 30m monthly active users each, but they may catch up.

有超过2.71亿的Zynga游戏玩家每月至少玩该公司的游戏一次，在3月，这家公司预计其今年的总收入将达到18亿美元，同时利润将达到6.3亿美元。所以比起其他网络公司，Zynga的业务收入可是更加实打实的。但是一个头脑清醒的投资者显然不会把宝压在Zynga这家依赖于“农场”的在线游戏开发商身上。玩家们可能只是对虚拟蔬菜，黑帮战争（Mafia Wars另一款Zynga开发的风靡游戏）之类的在线游戏图一时的新鲜。而Zynga的竞争对手也正全力抢占Zynga的用户。像现在电子艺界（Electronic Arts）、Plyadom还有Wooga这些公司每月的活跃用户分别都只有3000万左右，但是他们可能会迎头赶上。