Social gaming company Zynga (NASDAQ: ZNGA) has announced its Q3 FY12 figures for the three months ending 30 September 2012.

Revenue was $317 million, up 3 percent year-on-year.

However, the company made a net loss of $52.7 million, compared to a profit of $12.5 million 12 months ago.

This was partly due to a writedown of goodwill from its $180 million acquisition of OMGPOP. In that context, Zynga's figures were better than expected. 

Zynga pointed out it had generated cash flow from operations of $30.1 million, giving it a warchest of cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of around $1.6 billion.

It will be using up to $200 million of this in a share buy back scheme.

Time to turn

"While the last several months have been challenging for us, Zynga remains well positioned to capitalise on the growth of social gaming," said CEO Mark Pincus.

"We're implementing a number of steps to drive long-term growth and profitability. The successful launches of FarmVille 2 and ChefVille in the third quarter demonstrate that when we develop great games, our large player audience engages.

"It's more clear than ever that along with search, shop, and share, play is a fundamental pillar of the internet, and Zynga continues to be the leader,"

As announced yesterday, Zynga has a restructuring plan in place - including the loss of 150 jobs - which is expected to generate savings of between $15-20 million over the next three months.

More play, less pay

In terms of activity, the company's daily active user base was up 10 percent year-on-year to 60 million.

Monthly active users were up 37 percent year-on-year to 311 million, but Zynga saw a decrease in average daily bookings (a measure of revenue) down 19 percent to $0.047 and monthly unique payers, down 28 percent compared to Q2 2012 to 3 million.

Zynga blamed the latter on the drop-off of players from Draw Something.

In an analyst call, Mark Pincus said the publisher will increase its release schedule with two web games and four mobile games planned per quarter in 2013. All new web games will also have a mobile component.

In addition, it's started rolling out its web and phone publishing strategy, with Phosphor Games' Horn and Crash Lab's Twist Pilot being recent mobile launches.

And it will launch real money gambling games in the UK market in 2013 thanks to its partnership with bwin.party.

[source: Zynga IR]