With over a decade at Zynga, Yaron Leyvand has overseen a diverse portfolio of games, including original franchises like Words With Friends and Zynga Poker, as well as acquired hits such as Empires & Puzzles, Toon Blast, and Merge Dragons!
Before joining Zynga in 2013, Yaron held leadership roles in the gaming and trading industries, including positions such as Vice President of Marketing and Product at an online trading company and Chief Operating Officer at Mobius Solutions.
In this exclusive interview, Leyvand shares how Zynga operates when it comes to IP collaborations.
As EVP of Zynga’s Mobile Studios, what signals or shifts are you paying the closest attention to in today’s mobile gaming landscape?
The mobile landscape has never been more exciting. One thing we are seeing, as the industry continues to grow and evolve, is that today’s players are looking for a deeper overall experience when enjoying mobile titles.
Our audience is built of players across countries, ages, and a wide range of interests and expertise. As a result, our teams are constantly listening to feedback and innovating to bring new and sophisticated titles to market, as well as elevating the standard of our extensive portfolio of live services and features.
When evaluating new entertainment IPs, what factors determine whether they’re the right strategic fit for Zynga’s portfolio and player base?
It’s important to tap into cultural moments and bring in fan favorites that allow people to engage with characters, content, and storylines in a new way. With our expansive player base, we can explore multiple avenues with our partners.
We aim to work with IPs that reach multiple generations and demographics, like CSR2 and the Fast and the Furious franchise, so that we can use the opportunity to engage with as many people as possible with each instance. Each integration has to be authentic to the game and gameplay to engage both the core IP fans and our players.
Our CSR2 partnership for the 40th Anniversary of Back to the Future is a great example. Bringing an iconic piece of film history into the game satisfies the players who want to continue to build their in-game garages, along with fans of the movie who want to go 88mph across the finish line.
On the other side of the spectrum, we found that our Words with Friends players fit a similar fan base to Bravo’s Real Housewives Franchise, bringing a lively partnership to launch the game’s new single-player modes.
By creating a fun, unexpected pop culture moment, we were able to share a big game announcement directly with our audience watching Bravo. Taglines and soundbites are central to the Bravo universe, which allowed us to further the partnership and bring the Bravo IP in-game.
We infused the humor and catchphrases of the Housewives across different in-game touchpoints, giving our players more ways to engage.
What lessons has Zynga taken from recent IP adaptations, both its own and across the industry?
We have learned two ways to succeed when we commit to licensed projects. First, we ensure the product is strong on its own and does not rely solely on the IP to carry the title.
Second, we respect the fandom by holding true to the property and its foundation. An adaption calls for the product teams to walk a fine line. In our industry, product originality and game quality are just as important as the IP franchise when it comes to getting it right.
At Zynga, our development and marketing teams are dedicated to the titles that they work across. By engaging deeply with the social communities around these games, we have been able to really tap into what each audience cares about, what excites them, and what keeps them coming back to solve their daily puzzles, race around the world, or join forces to battle as teams.
In addition to bringing in outside entertainment properties, it is important that we continue to develop and grow our original IP. For instance, Zynga Poker will be celebrating 18 years in 2025, and we are continuing to invest in the title, bringing new features, partnerships, and game modes like the Multi-Table Tournaments into the fold.
From a licensing and integration standpoint, what are the biggest challenges you’ve encountered when working with global IPs?
You need to get the details right. For example, our teams working on our Game of Thrones titles and Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells work incredibly closely with the teams at Warner Bros. to make sure that we are immersing fans in specifics that make their favorite IPs so great.
Most recently, the development and marketing teams behind Game of Thrones: Legends are Game of Thrones fans themselves, and they look at every piece of the puzzle to make sure that it is in line with the storytelling and worlds created in the series. From the color of the clothing to the dialogue in cut scenes to easter eggs in the marketing assets, each detail is meticulously built to provide an authentic representation of the source materials.
When we were preparing for the launch last summer, we wanted to show fans this dedication right off the bat. This was the driving ethos behind our campaign with Kit Harington. Bringing the King of the North back to Westeros in the same way that our players would be able to at launch highlighted the lore and true integration of the IP into the RPG Puzzle title.
What does success look like for Zynga when launching an IP collaboration? How do you define value beyond short-term engagement or revenue and make it meaningful and memorable?
Creating an experience that is meaningful and memorable is the goal. We focus on cultural moments players can be excited about and share with their communities. In mobile, engagement and revenue come when players find a reason to connect with the titles, where they can build their own stories with the IP they love.
In Game of Thrones: Legends, for example, players build their own house of champions with characters from across the Game of Thrones universe. Being able to take their favorites from across this universe and create their custom team gives players a way to immerse themselves in a story they know and love. We have seen fantastic organic sharing as our players discover which pairs are most powerful and use their knowledge of the lore of the series to create their own narratives.
What advice would you give to teams or executives entering the gaming space who want to lead high-impact, IP-driven projects?
It is important to start with an excellent gaming experience in an enjoyable and lasting genre, with compelling features and mechanics, and then integrate IP in a way that enhances the gameplay as opposed to trying to fit a popular IP into a game for the name alone.
Players can see through an inauthentic placement, and you will not have a lasting title. Take your time to create something with depth and heart that connects to the fans.
As gaming, entertainment, and interactive media continue to converge, how is Zynga positioning itself over the next five years to stay ahead—and what key focus areas are shaping your future plans?
The lines between all types of entertainment have blurred. Traditionally segmented audiences, players, and viewers are all becoming one massive group of people looking for fun and escape. Moving forward, this brings big opportunities to innovate and expand our offerings.
I think we will continue to see consolidation in the marketplace and as a leader in the space, Zynga is in an even greater position now as part of Take-Two. We have studios around the world that are the best at what they do, and by pooling our knowledge within Take-Two, and within our own family of studios, we can work together to share best practices, learn from each other, and collaborate in ways that contribute to exciting new products.
We are also very proud of Zynga’s history of innovation in bringing gaming to new platforms and finding new ways to connect the world through games. I foresee this continuing as new technologies, platforms, and trends emerge in the next few years. We are always looking ahead for creative ways to connect with our players and are not afraid to be the first to try something new. It is all learning we can use for our next big idea.
