// startup autopsy

OMGPOP

One viral hit, one bad acquirer, one dead studio.

acquisition gone wrongAcqui-hire

Fatal mistake: OMGPOP sold at peak hype with no durable product pipeline, making the acquisition value entirely dependent on Draw Something's fleeting popularity.

Founded	2006
Closed	2013
Country	USA
Sector	Gaming

50%

Key Events Timeline

2006-01-01

FOUNDING

OMGPOP founded as iminlikewithyou, a casual web games platform targeting social gamers.

2011-06-01

FUNDING

Raised final funding round bringing total to $16.6M, rebranded to OMGPOP and pivoted to mobile.

2012-02-01

PRODUCT LAUNCH

Draw Something launched and exploded to 35M downloads in 50 days, becoming the #1 app globally.

2012-03-21

ACQUISITION ATTEMPT

Zynga acquired OMGPOP for approximately $180M at the absolute peak of Draw Something's popularity.

2013-06-01

SHUTDOWN

Zynga shut down OMGPOP studio, laid off all staff, and took a massive writedown on the acquisition.

Full Analysis

Analyst plan

Documented cause

OMGPOP was acquired by Zynga in March 2012 for $180-200 million following the viral success of Draw Something. However, the acquisition proved to be a strategic failure. The game experienced rapid user engageme...

nt collapse within weeks of its peak popularity, as the novelty wore off and player retention plummeted. Despite initial promise, OMGPOP failed to maintain momentum or develop sustainable engagement m

Verified lesson

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€180M

Peak valuation

HypeCycle · MoatType · ResearchTags

OMGPOP raised €16.6M before omgpop sold at peak hype with no durable product pipeline, making the acquisition value entirely dependent on draw something's fleeting popularity. ended it. See the documented cause, verified lesson and all failure signals.

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