Zynga Inc. reportedly paid $200 to $250 million to acquire start-up OMGPOP Inc. creator of the popular game "Draw Something".

"The OMGPOP team has created a game that's fun, expressive and engenders real social interaction," said Zynga CEO Mark Pincus said in a news release. "Draw Something has captured the imagination of millions of people around the world. We love the way they've worked playful and relevant culture into their games from Devo to Daft Punk, from Lin to Beckham."

The purchase is Zynga's biggest publicly disclosed acquisition to date. Zynga, maker of popular social games "Words with Friends" and "Farmville" had mostly acquired small game developers for a price range of $5 to $20 million. Zynga's acquisition of OMGPOP is a strategic move since the mobile sketching game "Draw Something" has blown up as a hit game knocking off Zynga from the top of the social game charts. Since "Draw Something" was released six weeks ago more than 35 million people have downloaded the mobile game in which players share images they drew on their mobile phones based on selected words and their friends attempt to guess their artistic efforts.

The game has become such a hot commodity that just last week players created more than 1 billion drawings. Zynga's acquisition is a pre-emptive strike against what could be a formidable competitor. Instead of launching a competing title like "Draw with Friends", Zynga is hoping to duplicate the same success it had when it bought the former Newtoy team that created "Words with Friends". OMGPOP's "Draw Something" is also an ideal fit for Zynga's line-up. Newtoy has launched "Scramble with Friends" and "Hanging with Friends".

OMGPOP will maintain its New York game studios and still be headed by current Chief Executive Officer Dan Porter. Porter said that joining Zynga will give his company the ability to add more features to the hit game including an in-game chat, photo galleries and the ability to draw their own portraits.

"We want to make games that connect people, we want to make people smile," he said."It was clear from the beginning that Zynga really got what we wanted to do."

The company's next game, "The Street" is due out next week. The deal briefly boosted Zynga's stock above $14.40 per share. The stock closed at $13.72.

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