Zynga IPO is a go-go: Shares to hit the market tomorrow at $10 a pop

Zynga, the ginormous developer behind FarmVille and CityVille, is looking to make serious bank on its initial public offering (IPO). For real this time, people. Bloomberg reports that the San Francisco-based company will hit the Nasdaq Dec. 16 at $10 a share. That price is at the high end of its reported $8.50 to $10 range. And at 100 million shares, the company looks to raise $1 billion.

You can cue the Dr. Evil-esque laughter now--we bet Zynga CEO Mark Pincus and crew already have. The company's final valuation, according to TechCrunch, is $7 billion. That's a bit on the low side of what many outlets estimated: between $6 and $9 billion. This market cap would put Zynga right in line with EA, which currently has a market cap of $6.93 billion, and way under Activision Blizzard's (the most valuable company in the industry) $13.57 billion.

Those comparisons are important: Zynga was founded in 2007, while EA and Activision Blizzard were originally created in 1982 and 1979, respectively. That means the creator of Flash games like CastleVille could end up being worth more than a 29-year-old company after just four years. What does this mean?

Well, we're either looking at the biggest bubble in the tech world since Google went public in 2004, or free-to-play, easily accessible and low-impact efforts will truly drive the future of video games. Of course, Zynga still has to worry if investors will look past the recent torrent of bad press and poor estimations by analysts. Successful IPO or not, something tells us Zynga will face an uphill battle in 2012.

What do you think of what Zynga expects in its IPO? What does this mean for the game industry as a whole? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.