Originally published March 2012. Updated June 2026.
Draw Something is the social mobile drawing game OMGPOP launched on February 1, 2012, that crossed 50 million downloads in seven weeks and triggered Zynga’s $210 million acquisition of OMGPOP on March 21, 2012 — the fastest mobile-gaming acquisition in history at the time. The arc from launch to acquisition to user collapse to studio shutdown took less than two years and became the case study every mobile-gaming investor cites when discussing virality risk, retention, and the gap between download spikes and durable revenue.
What Draw Something Was
Draw Something was a turn-based Pictionary-style drawing game built for iOS and Android. One player drew a word from a list of three options. The partner guessed the word from a scrambled set of letters. The drawing replayed stroke by stroke during the guess phase — the social mechanic that turned every round into a shareable moment. The game launched as a free version with ads and a paid version at $0.99 without ads. The pricing alone is now historical artifact — the mobile gaming category has moved entirely to free-to-play with in-app purchases since 2014.
The download curve in the first eight weeks was vertical. 1.2 million downloads in ten days. 20 million by week five. 50 million by mid-March 2012. Active users hit 14 million daily at peak. Revenue ran into six figures per day — more than OMGPOP had generated in the prior year combined. The numbers were the kind of growth that triggers acquisition theses inside larger gaming companies.
The Zynga Acquisition
Zynga acquired OMGPOP on March 21, 2012, for approximately $180 million in cash plus roughly $30 million in employee retention. The headline number reported was $210 million. The deal closed within days of negotiations starting. Zynga at the time was the public mobile-gaming leader on the strength of FarmVille, CityVille, and Words with Friends. The Draw Something acquisition was framed as the next mobile breakout. Mark Pincus, Zynga’s founder, personally drove the deal.
The acquisition arc was studied because the collapse arc was just as fast. Draw Something daily active users fell from 14 million in March 2012 to 10 million in May 2012 to under 5 million by late summer. By April 2013 Zynga wrote down the OMGPOP acquisition entirely. By June 2013 Zynga shut OMGPOP’s New York office. The total time from $210 million acquisition to studio closure was fifteen months.
Why Draw Something Collapsed
Three structural failures drove the decline. First, the retention model depended on novelty — once players had drawn the high-novelty words, repeat play lost the surprise. Pictionary mechanics do not generalize the way Words with Friends or Candy Crush mechanics do. Second, the monetization model relied on a $0.99 paid upgrade and modest in-app purchases. The 2012-2014 mobile-gaming category was shifting to free-to-play with high-conversion gacha and battle pass models — Draw Something monetization could not match the per-user economics competitors were proving. Third, the social mechanic depended on Facebook’s open graph and SMS contact import. Both surfaces were tightening in 2012, and viral discovery slowed accordingly.
What Draw Something Taught the Mobile Gaming Category
The Draw Something case became the canonical reference for the gap between viral install spike and durable revenue. Every major mobile-gaming acquisition since 2012 — King by Activision Blizzard ($5.9 billion, 2015), Supercell by Tencent ($8.6 billion, 2016), Zynga by Take-Two ($12.7 billion, 2022), Activision Blizzard by Microsoft ($69 billion, 2023) — runs retention analysis as a primary diligence input. The lesson is that download charts are not revenue, daily active users are not engagement, and engagement is not retention. Draw Something hit the first two metrics at scale and missed the third. Mark Pincus addressed the failure publicly in subsequent Zynga earnings calls and used it as a leadership lesson when he returned to the Zynga CEO role in 2015.
Draw Something is a social mobile drawing game OMGPOP launched on February 1, 2012. Players take turns drawing words from a list while their partner guesses. The game crossed 50 million downloads in seven weeks and triggered Zynga’s $210 million acquisition of OMGPOP.
Who made Draw Something?
OMGPOP, a New York-based mobile gaming startup founded in 2006 by Charles Forman. OMGPOP was acquired by Zynga on March 21, 2012, for approximately $210 million.
How much did Zynga pay for OMGPOP?
Approximately $210 million total — $180 million in cash plus $30 million in employee retention. The deal closed within days of negotiations starting and was the largest mobile-gaming acquisition to that date.
Why did Draw Something fail?
Retention collapsed within 90 days of the acquisition. Pictionary mechanics did not generalize for repeat play. The $0.99 monetization model lost to free-to-play competitors with higher per-user economics. Facebook open-graph virality tightened in 2012, slowing discovery.
What happened to OMGPOP after the Zynga acquisition?
Zynga wrote down the OMGPOP acquisition in April 2013. The OMGPOP New York office was shut down in June 2013, fifteen months after the acquisition closed.
What did the mobile gaming industry learn from Draw Something?
The download spike-to-revenue gap. Every major mobile-gaming acquisition since 2012 runs retention analysis as a primary diligence input — King-Activision, Supercell-Tencent, Zynga-Take-Two, Activision Blizzard-Microsoft. Draw Something is the canonical reference case.
Written by
EPR Editorial Team
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
