Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA) has recently published its third quarter 2014 financial report, and the results are bleak. The game developer’s losses are widening, amid change in consumer preference toward mobile games rather than browser-based ones.

For the quarter ended September 30th, 2014, Zynga reported a loss of $57.1 million, a stark difference from the $68,000 loss reported in the same period last year. Loss per share for Q3 2014 was $0.06 per share, widening from the $0.01 per share loss in the same period the previous year. The company actually beat analyst expectations for revenue, with $176.6 million compared to the expected $171.7 million. Quarterly revenue fell 13% compared to Q3 2013, however.

According to CEO Don Mattrick, the company has been focusing on improving its mobile bookings — sales of in-game items and mobile ad impressions. In fact, this has increased 10% sequentially in Q3 2014, and such mobile bookings make up 55% of the total across the company’s browser- and mobile-based assets. The company expects total bookings for the year to be between $695 to $725 million — a figure adjusted down from an initial estimate of $770 to $810 million.

However, Zynga is still struggling in maintaining its user base. The number of daily active users shrank 13% year-on-year to 26 million, down from 30 million in 2013 and 60 million in 2012, when the company’s share value peaked on high hopes of launching another hit game series like Farmville.

Zynga also released updates to its game titles in September, which it says has contributed to the decline in popularity, given user difficulty in adjusting to new user interfaces, as well as non-support for some older mobile devices. With this in mind, Mattrick says the company will need to “We need to  improve our execution in terms of product quality and audience growth,” he said during investor guidance.

So far, Zynga has launched a new version of Poker and Words With Friends, as well as new title NFL Showdown. The company has also introduced Looney Tunes Dash into select markets and plans a wider release during the year. Even with these efforts, however, the former hit-maker has yet to find another means to revitalize its business. While Zynga had been the star of the show on social networks in its heyday, the struggle today is finding its niche — and another hit — amid the rise of mobile devices as the best platform for reaching out to a wide audience. Analysts believe the stock is a risky proposition, given the company’s mounting losses and challenges.

Feature image credit: 360b / Shutterstock.com

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As a part of Nvidia’s (NASDAQ:NVDA) GPU Technology Conference (GTC) the company holds a parallel track of presentations and events called the emerging companies summit (ECS). The ECS for next year’s GTC 2015 is coming with an even bigger bonus with the fact that the company with the best GPU technology startup will get $100,000 on the spot at GTC 2015’s ECS.

Nvidia has always been one to promote emerging companies and to support startups in the best ways that they can. In fact, some of Nvidia’s most famous attendees of their GPU Technology conference include GAIKAI which was sold to Sony (TYO: 6758) for $380 million. Don’t forget there’s also Oculus who makes the Oculus Rift VR headset which was sold to Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) for $2 billion as well as Natural Motion who was acquired by Zynga for $527 million.

Obviously Nvidia’s GTC attracts a decent amount of successful companies that want to get involved with Nvidia and GPU technologies and there’s clearly no end in sight. This is especially true now that Nvidia’s GPU technologies have finally found their way into mobile. In fact, we spoke with Nvidia and were informed that companies utilizing either discrete or SoC GPU graphics are eligible to apply for this prize, so there’s no reason to think too narrowly of what’s possible.

Nvidia states that it is looking for seed-funded companies, which have raised no more than $1 million and use GPU technologies in areas such as computing, visualization, analytics, entertainment, automotive, cloud or mobile. But I wouldn’t necessarily limit myself to those categories if you’ve genuinely got a novel idea and think that Nvidia might find it interesting how you utilize its GPUs. If you’d like to have your company enter, just follow this application and get your application in before January 19th, 2015.

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David Lee is the latest chief financial officer for Zynga, the social games producer. Lee comes with an impressive set of skills, albeit in such diverse industries as retail and food processing. Could be he hopes to help Zynga chew up the competition.

Best Buy lost their senior vice president of finance when Lee bounced over to Zynga. He left Del Monte Foods after eight years when he joined Best Buy in 2012 for a short tenure. At Zynga, Lee replaces Mark Vranesh who had been with Zynga for six years. The two will work in tandem for a one month get acquainted period before Vranesh’s resignation is final.

His Del Monte Food background may serve David Lee well at Zynga

Zynga has been led by a former Microsoft executive, Don Mattrick, for less than one year, but Mattrick has been successful in cutting costs even though their fourth quarter still recorded a $25.2 million loss. Part of the cost cutting included employee layoffs. Adding to the challenge Vranesh faces is declining sales – quoted as being down 43 percent. First quarter 2014 results are due the end of this month.

The 52 week range for the stock, NASDAQ:ZNGA, reflects the company’s promise and disappoints as it waivers between $2.50 – $5.89, currently at $4.03. The release of FarmVille 2: Country Escape launched recently in Canada and Australia on the iPhone is a positive move according to some analysts, but the ticker didn’t move up before close today.

Where the company will go from here is a question where Lee may have some influence. He has built on his Harvard University degree becoming an instrumental strategist. Lee was hired to turnaround Best Buy as part of the Renew Blue transformation. At Del Monte Foods, he was charge of corporate strategy, where he led divestiture of the Starkist Tuna business and the take-private sale of Del Monte Foods to private equity investors. Before that, Lee was one the founding partners in the first corporate VC firm sponsored by PG&E to cultivate, fund, and manage high tech ventures in the emerging energy, software/IT, and telecom industries.

Zynga CEO Mattrick said: “David has a deep understanding of business management and a sharp financial acumen that will be invaluable to Zynga’s long term growth and success.” With Mr. Lee’s several strengths, it is difficult to envision the path he plans for Zynga. But it can’t be a one man show if he is to fit into Zynga’s philosophy. Human Resources states in their employment ad: ”Taking creative risks can be scary. That’s why we work in multidisciplinary teams. Lots of collaboration = lots of support.”

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