Rise of Zynga Pressures Videogame Incumbents

Faced with shrinking sales in console and computer games, big game publishers are now starting to wade into social games themselves. EA last November acquired Zynga rival Playfish Ltd. in a deal valued at as much as $400 million. THQ Inc., best known for wrestling and fighting games, has created a development team focused on social games and plans to release three games this year that can be played through Facebook.

We’re also looking at the rise of ad-powered video games.