Five Reasons Yahoo Shouldn't Buy Zynga

Yahoo

is

in a bid for Zynga

.

At least one analyst, Wunderlich's Blake Harper, believes that Zynga has officially become a

for the firm, along with Yelp

and OpenTable

. As the owner of the FarmVille brand, Zynga might seem like an attractive acquisition. If anyone could turn the company around, it's Yahoo. That does not mean that Yahoo should be ready to open its checkbook. There are many reasons why the company should forget Zynga ever existed.

Never mind Yahoo. Most

are beginning to forget Zynga exists. While the Angry Birds fad continues to thrive for Rovio, Zynga has been unable to keep its own fads -- namely FarmVille and Words With Friends -- from losing their luster.

indicates that several dozen Zynga games are losing players. Far fewer Zynga games are

players. This is yet another sign of trouble for the struggling enterprise.

Investors hope (and perhaps believe) that Zynga will one day become the leader of online gambling. However, there is no evidence to confirm this assumption. Zynga's sketchy track record and lackluster game efforts should be more than enough to scare away potential investors, particularly Yahoo. Why should anyone believe that its gambling initiative will be any more successful?

Without any compelling games to inspire users to stick around, Zynga has been losing

every

. Despite the declines, Zynga is up more than 64 percent year-to-date as investors buy into the hope that the company will turn things around with a slate of gambling games. As of this writing, however, Zynga's shares are down more than four percent.

Zynga CEO Mark Pincus has admitted to doing "

." Who would want to buy a company from a man like that?

Zynga has been doing so poorly that it

, closed multiple studios and shut down several games last year. That didn't stop the company's CEO from spending

on a brand-new home.

The author of this article has no position on Zynga, has never had a position on Zynga, and does not plan to take a position within the next 72 hours.