Forget the Black Friday rush, give the gift of Zynga stock [Report]

The ever-shifting Zynga initial public offering has changed its projected date once again, according to a Bloomberg report. Now, the FarmVille maker is looking past Thanksgiving for its $1 billion IPO, two anonymous sources said. Just two weeks ago, it was reported that the company would go public before Thanksgiving through the Nasdaq under the symbol "ZNGA."

Since Zynga filed to go public earlier this July, the company has repeatedly altered its filing in response to demands by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Most recently, it was revealed that 6.7 million Zynga gamers pay up for in-game goods, which is up from 5.1 million in the previous year. And while revenue doubled to $829.9 million, profits continue to drop another 54 percent in the third financial quarter year-over-year.

Granted, that can be chalked up to increased costs in research and development. (Come one, did you see the litany of games released and announced this year alone?) Should the IPO go through this year, it could very well set Zynga ahead of traditional gaming companies like EA--now a direct competitor with The Sims Social--and perhaps even the mighty Activision Blizzard.

With that kind of pressure, we can kind of see why the big red dog is taking its sweet time. Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like some potentially valuable stock, huh? And here you wanted an iPad. (Alright, we'll admit it: An iPad is way cooler.)

Look, Zynga, MapleStory maker Nexon can make a billion bucks too

Well, at least in Japan. TechCrunch reports that Nexon, the South Korean creator of hit free-to-play game franchise MapleStory, looks to make up to $1.3 billion from its initial public offering (IPO) on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The company, which has since expanded onto Facebook with a version of MapleStory and two other games, expects to reel in over 100 billion yen.

Better yet, the Nexon IPO could boost the now Japan-based company's market cap, or the public consensus on how much a company is worth, up to between $7.7 and $9 billion. For those keeping score, that's not terribly far off from where Zynga is expected to land. (You know, when its IPO actually happens.) And in the Japanese social game space, that could set Nexon in first place ahead of both DeNA and GREE.

Many credit Nexon as one of the first companies to popularize the free-to-play game model in the Western world. The company is also known for releasing the world's first graphics-based MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game), The Kingdom of the Winds, in 1995. That said, we're surprised this hadn't happened sooner.

On Facebook, Nexon currently enjoys around 1.7 million monthly players, according to AppData. That's thanks almost entirely to MapleStory Adventures. However, the publisher's Wonder Cruise has yet to officially release on Facebook and its brand spankin' new Zombie Misfits is slowly climbing. Now, if only Nexon would take that extra cash and put Dungeon Fighter in our iPhones already.