Zynga versus DeNa : A new challenger approaches, ready... fight!

    Zynga
While Zynga has been the king of the social gaming ring in the U.S. for some time now, across the Pacific social gamers answer to a different ruler: DeNa. The Tokyo-based Japanese social gaming company has amassed $336.4 million just this quarter and aspires to over $1.4 billion in total revenue by the end of the year, Gamezebo reports. Compared to Zynga's expected $700 million, according to Softpedia, DeNa is quickly on their way to ousting the current social games titan.

Not to mention that DeNa claims to make 30 times more revenue per user than Zynga, which basically means that players within the Japanese network on average spend that much more than players of Zynga games. Gamezebo speculates that the reason why DeNa would frame its quarterly earnings like this is because the company is more than willing to take Zynga head on as the number one social games creator around the globe. And we can't blame it when the current wearer of the crown is buying up studios left and right in the U.S. and internationally. Not to mention Zynga has also made large investments in Japan, which DeNa surely finds more than threatening.

Though, DeNa isn't scot-free; just this year the company took Ngmoco, a U.S.-based mobile gaming company, under its wing. With both players aiming for the same territory (i.e. the world), it looks like the battle for social gaming supremacy isn't going to take place in just U.S. pipelines, but in tubes and cellular towers around the globe. The year before the end just got even more interesting.de

ngmoco's We Rule boasts 12 million downloads, 3 billion minutes of playtime

In America, social gaming on the iPhone, iPad and other mobile devices has not reached its potential -- though this new We Rule infographic shows that, that might be changing soon (esp. considering the explosive growth of Android devices and tablets in general).

Ngmoco's freemium social kingdom simulation game for IOS devices celebrates its one-year anniversary this month, and to mark the occasion, has come out with some impressive sounding stats like 3 billion minutes played, 13 million downloads and 40 billion coins spent daily.

Of course, if you compare this game to Angry Birds, which has 100 million downloads, the numbers don't seem quite as epic as this infographic makes them out to be. Then again, Roxio's other hit, Cut the Rope, has somewhere in the ballpark of 6 million downloads -- so We Rule might not be number one, but just might hold the keys to a mobile social kingdom that has not yet reached its heyday.