Zynga had a very good year last year, and now the company is offering you the opportunity to get in on the action. Zynga filed for a $1 billion IPO today with Morgan Stanley & Co. and Goldman, Sachs & Co. serving as book running managers and representatives of the underwriters for the offering. The game maker that has lured hundreds of millions of gamers with titles like Farmville, Cityville and Empires & Allies is going public.

Zynga had revenue of $597.5 million in 2010, which marked a huge leap over its 2009 take of $121.5 million. Last year also saw a huge uptick in profits with $27.9 million, compared to a $52.8 million loss in 2009.

According to eMarketer, the rapid rise in popularity of social networking sites as a venue for casual gaming will drive overall U.S. social gaming revenues to $1.09 billion this year. That’s up from $856 billion in 2010.

Nearly 62 million U.S. Internet users, or 27% of the online audience, will play at least one game on a social network monthly this year. That’s up from 53 million in 2010.

Revenues from virtual goods make up the majority of overall social gaming revenues, accounting for $510 million in revenues in 2010. eMarketer estimates social gaming sites will earn $653 million in virtual goods revenues this year, compared to just $192 million in ad revenues and $248 million in lead-generation offers.

About the Author

John Gaudiosi

Editor-in-Chief

John Gaudiosi has been covering videogames for the past 17 years for outlets like The Washington Post, CNET, Wired Magazine and CBS.com. He has focused on the convergence of entertainment and videogames for outlets like Video Business, Home Media Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of Gamerlive.TV and is also a freelance game columnist for Reuters and writes for outlets like Playboy Magazine, NVISION Magazine, GamePro Magazine, Official PlayStation Magazine, EGM Now, Maxim.com, AOL GameDaily.com, GeForce.com, and Yahoo! Games. John also serves as the video game expert for NBC in Washington D.C. John was named one of the Top 50 Game Journalists in the world by Next-Gen.biz in 2007. He is the co-author of Scholastic Books' How to Get into Videogames, Prima Publishing's Madden: Twenty Years of Videogame Football and Electronic Arts: The Official History.