SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Zynga Inc. priced its initial public offering at $10 per share on Thursday afternoon — the high end of the expected range for the deal, signaling strong investor demand for the maker of social games. 
 
 Reuters Zynga CEO Mark Pincus introduced new games at the company’s San Francisco headquarters on Oct. 11. 
 
 Zynga ZNGA, +10.45% will begin trading on the Nasdaq on Friday morning under the ticker symbol ZNGA. 
 
 Late Thursday, the company priced 100 million shares at $10 per share. It had previously filed papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell its shares at a range of $8.50-$10 apiece. 
 
 Zynga is the latest in a series of high-profile Internet IPOs this year that has included social network LinkedIn Corp. LNKD, +1.19% and online daily deals site Groupon Inc. GRPN, +1.67% Social networking giant Facebook Inc. is expected to debut next year, though some rumors have indicated that the company could make its initial filing within the next few weeks. 
 
 Scott Sweet of IPO Boutique said his clients were surprised with the Zynga pricing, given that past deals in the Internet and social networking space priced above their filed range. 
 
 “We were expecting above-range pricing. Certainly this deal had more demand than Jive Software,” Sweet said, referring to a provider of social networking software that debuted earlier this week after pricing its IPO at $12 — above its expected range of $8-$10. 
 
 Sweet added, however, that Zynga took “a sensible approach” in not trying to get too much money too soon — leaving the door open for a possible secondary offering down the road. He said he was “very pleased” with the pricing. 
 
 Underwriters for Zynga have been granted an additional 15 million shares to cover over-allotments. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are the lead underwriters on the deal, which also includes participation from B. of A. Merrill Lynch, Barclays, J.P. Morgan and Allen & Co. 
 
 The company expects to have about 699.4 million total shares outstanding following the debut, which includes Class B and C shares that won’t be offered to the public. 
 
 Speakeasy's top video game picks (2:50) Speakeasy games contributor Adam Najberg joins digits to discuss his favorite videogames of 2011. His top pick isn't "Call of Duty." 
 
 The IPO price of $10 per share gives the company a total market value of just under $7 billion. Previous valuation targets leaked to media outlets had the number around $10 billion. 
 
 That puts Zynga above many traditional game publishers, and in line with Electronic Arts ERTS , which has a current market cap just under $7 billion. Activision Blizzard ATVI, +1.05% remains the largest company in the videogame space, with a market cap around $13.5 billion. 
 
 Zynga makes games played primarily over Facebook. Popular titles have included “CityVille,” “FarmVille” and “Mafia Wars.” The company has about 227 million average monthly users who play the games for free, with a small portion who purchase items through micro-transactions within the games that makes up the bulk of the company’s revenue. 
 
 For the nine months ended Sept. 30, Zynga claimed total revenue of $828.9 million — more than double the $401.7 million in revenue from the same period last year. Net income for the recent period was $30.7 million, down from $47.6 million in the comparable period thanks to a sharp rise in marketing and R&D expenses. 
 
 Zynga plans to use the proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes and possibly acquisitions. About $83.6 million will go toward satisfying tax-withholding obligations related to the vesting of restricted stock units. ||||| Dow Jones Reprints: This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visit www.djreprints.com 
 
 Zynga Inc. priced its initial public offering at $10 a share, raising about $1 billion for the maker of online games in the biggest U.S. Internet debut since Google Inc. 
 
 While the price set by Zynga and its bankers is at the top of the $8.50 to $10 a share range that Zynga set two weeks ago, the company's valuation will be far less than the $20 billion that had been expected earlier this year. 
 
 The deal values the company, which makes "Words With Friends" and other games played mostly on Facebook, at $8.9 billion, counting unexercised options and warrants.
– Tomorrow should be a pretty good day to live in Farmville: Creator Zynga begins trading publicly on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker ZNGA, and the company has set the price for the 100 million shares being sold at $10, reports MarketWatch. That would peg the market value of Zynga at $7 billion and make it the biggest US Internet IPO since Google in 2004, notes the Wall Street Journal. The $7 billion valuation is impressive, but it's way under the figure of $20 billion being thrown around earlier this year in giddier days. Next up, Facebook?