Draw Something is a mobile app developed by OMGPop, launched on February 6, 2012. It won a Flurry App Spotlight Award in 2012. In the first five weeks after its launching, the game was downloaded 20 million times. On March 21, 2012, both Draw Something and OMGPop were bought by the gaming companyZynga for $180 million. The game's popularity peaked on the day of the sale, and the number of daily active users tumbled from 15 million to 10 million by early May. The game is available in a free version, which shows interstitial advertisements between games; a standard version which has no advertisements between games, but allows the player to obtain bombs in exchange for watching advertisements, and a more expensive Pro version for the iPad which offers unlimited bombs. On April 25, 2013, Draw Something 2 was released for iOS.
Gameplay
Two players take turns drawing a picture to convey the guess word for their partner to guess. The person drawing is provided three random words, ranked by difficulty, earning one to three coins if their partner guesses correctly. After the player has finished drawing, the guesser will view a stroke by stroke replay of the drawing, without the pauses in between. The guesser is given a number of blank spaces representing the number of letters in the word, and a selection of scrambled letters, which include all the letters of the word plus some more letters which are not in the word. The guesser gets unlimited tries and time to use these letters and attempt enter the guess word. The drawer gets an opportunity to watch their partner guess the drawing as it is replayed. Coins build up to eventually allow the player to purchase more shades of colour for drawing or "bombs". The game comes with a limited set of colours and a small number of bombs; coins can also be obtained by an in-app purchase, while the player is offered bombs in exchange for watching advertisements. A "Pro" version of the game is also available which provides unlimited Bombs. Each player is given a number of "bombs". As a guesser, the bomb eliminates letters which are not part of the answer; as a drawer, the bomb gives a new set of guess words to choose from. If the guesser cannot guess the word, they can "pass", forfeiting the game. This breaks the pair's winning streak.
Reception
Draw Something took advantage of viral growth through integration with Facebook accounts. Players could sign in with their Facebook accounts, and a list of all their friends playing could be seen. Challenging a friend playing involved only clicking on their name. If a user wished to invite a friend, they could easily do so from within the app. A recent update allowed users to save and share their drawings with a single click from within the app.
Board game
In 2012, Zynga, in conjunction with Hasbro, released a physical board game version of Draw Something under the "Hasbro Gaming" imprint. This is one of several games in the Zynga game library to be released as physical board game versions. Others include Words with Friends, a CityVilleedition of Monopoly and several kids' games based on FarmVille.
