Zynga's Mark Pincus (L) with Don Mattrick (R).
The earnings will show shareholders just how much work Mattrick has before him to turn the gaming company around.
Mattrick joined Zynga earlier this month from Microsoft, where he headed up its Xbox division. Around the same time, Zynga shuttered more than 500 jobs and closed its offices in New York and Los Angeles, laying off most of the OMGPOP team it acquired for ~$200 million one year prior. Mark Pincus stepped down from the CEO role and is now Chairman and Chief Product Officer of Zynga.
Zynga is transitioning from a desktop to mobile-first company. And mobile is still very much the wild west when it comes to monetization and predictability. Successful mobile games are about as difficult to predict as a YouTube video's likelihood to go viral. To win in mobile, Zynga needs to continually churn out hits but its competition is arguably doing that better. King's Candy Crush is drawing a lot of attention and revenue – an estimated $633,000 per day. Europe's SuperCell is also creating mobile hits. Earlier this summer, Betaworks' Dots made a splash, although no money.
What should you expect from Zynga's call this afternoon?
In June Zynga told shareholders to expect a loss of 3 to 4 cents per share on revenue ranging from $225-235 million. Last year, Zynga's Q2 revenue came in below expectations but higher than this year's prediction at $332 million and EPS of 5 cents.