Zynga ends 2012 with a $209 million loss, but beats expectations

Zynga has officially closed the books on its first year as a publicly traded company, and there's both good news and bad news for the struggling social and mobile game giant. The bad news: the company lost $209 million dollars during the year, and lost 6 of its 60 million daily active users between the third and fourth quarters of 2012. The good news, though, is that it did better than Wall Street analysts were expecting: the company generated $311 million in revenues during the quarter, versus a $212 million analyst consensus. Investors seem happy: share prices are up around 6 percent in after hours trading. CEO Mark Pincus attributed the revenues to the healthy performance of FarmVille 2. Zynga's had a rough time lately, having recently shut down 11 games after major layoffs, continuing to be drained of its executive and creative staff, and recently losing its spot at the top of the Facebook game charts. The company says it will continue shuttering games that aren't performing to is expectations: CityVille 2, The Friend Game and Party Place are next. In 2013, Zynga will attempt to grow its mobile presence, and will take its first steps toward real money gambling.