Drawsome. Launched in February, a free picture game fetches $180 million

摘要

Every now and then a product comes along that launches its own genre-think of the string of reality shows that followed Survivor. In the world of computer games, Words with Friends helped spawn an entire industry of social gaming via smart phone. Now comes Draw Something, which is winning fans with its own twist on social gaming: getting players to cooperate rather than compete. Think of it as Pictionary for the iPhone age. Draw Something's collaborative ethos (we both do well when you correctly guess what I draw) has led people to download the game more than 35 million times in its first six weeks of existence. The app is so popular that on March 21, Zynga, the dominant online-game producer, agreed to pay $180 million in cash for it.