By BARBARA ORTUTAYNEW YORK -- Zynga's stock got a lukewarm reception in its public debut Friday. The online game developer's stock fell 2036 cents, or nearly 4 percent, to $9.8064 in midday trading, though earlier it traded slightly higher. It was by no means the eye-popping jump that's been the norm for freshly public Internet darlings such as Groupon Inc. and LinkedIn Corp.
But CEO Mark Pincus said Zynga's focus is on "delivering great products" that expand audience for social games over the next few years - and not on the next trading day.
"We didn't have any expectations coming into this whole process," he said in an interview. "We decided to go public a long time ago."Zynga Inc., which specializes in Facebook games, raised $1 billion in its initial public offering of stock. That makes it the largest Internet-related IPO since Google Inc. went public in 2004 and raised $1.4 billion. Pincus rang the Nasdaq's opening bell in San Francisco, a first in the city for a freshly public company.
The company's roughly 1,700 San Francisco employees woke up at the crack of down to celebrate with cinnamon buns and hot cocoa.
Zynga also delivered video of the opening ceremony over the Internet to its offices around the world.
Zynga's $10-per-share IPO price was at the top of its expected range, a sign that investors were eager to dig into the latest in a series ot creativity and talent.
In November, Groupon raised $700 million in its IPO. The granddaddy of all Internet IPOs might happen next year, as Facebook Inc. is expected to raise as much as $10 billion.
Zynga is trading under the ticker "ZNGA" on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
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AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson contributed to this report.
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