In terms of compulsive shoppers right now, Paris Hilton doesn’t hold a torch to social gaming giant Zynga.

Through the purchase of casual gaming platform DNA Games, the San Francisco-headquartered outfit has notched up its 14th acquisition in 12 months – and its third in four weeks.

Founded by Jon Lee and Shaun Hease in 2009 in the same city as its new owner, DNA Games describes itself as 'one piece game design "art", another piece user recruiting optimisation "science", and a third piece top-flight software engineering.'

Hitting the Casino

The newly assimilated company’s flagship title Casino City attracts 1.5 million monthly active users, while its remaining titles such as BarWorld serve up a further 900,000.

"DNA Games has a proven track record developing highly engaging social games and a technology platform that enables rapid iteration and optimisation of game features and design," Zynga said.

"Their expertise will be a valuable asset in next-generation game development for Zynga."

DNA Games’s co-founder Lee will assume the position of general manager at the new satellite studio, reporting to Zynga’s senior veep of product development Mark Skaggs.

Trail of destruction

Before the Mafia Wars and Zynga Poker creator considers its 15th swoop, though, it will have to respond to a recent lawsuit filed by The Learning Company.

The publisher of the classic The Oregon Trail game is suing Zynga over its forthcoming use of the term 'Oregon Trail' in a FrontierVille expansion.

Acquisition time, anyone??

[source: Develop / Universal Hub]