Zynga Plummets, Points Finger at Facebook

Yet another disappointing set of second-quarter financial results—this time from Zynga. The maker of social games, whose 2011 IPO was one of the Internet’s biggest ever, lost $22.8 million during the quarter, reported less-than-expected revenue of $332 million, and issued a very weak forecast for the rest of the year, the New York Times reports. The bad news sent its stock—which was already struggling—down 37% in pre-market trading today, reports Reuters.

This could prove to be bad news for Facebook, which has close connections to Zynga and which is issuing its own earnings report—its first as a public company—today. But Facebook is also getting pinned with some of the blame for Zynga's dulling star. Though the Times notes that the delay of new game The Ville and weakened enthusiasm for recently acquired Draw Something hurt Zynga, Facebook changes made trouble for the company, which gets upward of 90% of its revenue from the social network. "Facebook made a number of changes in the quarter," said Zynga's COO. "These changes favored new games. Our users did not remain as engaged and did not come back as often." (More Zynga stories.)