Too little, too late!


/as Sheldon Cooper would say.....Bye-Zynga!

Facebook by launching its own gaming site, "Project Z" and nine other products that avoid Facebook's debilitating 30 percent tax on its revenue.


Like I wanna click on a link to THAT lame shiat.

I've never played any of those shiatty games.

Zynga, love or hate their games, popularized freemium game monetization. At Casual Connect this year, which is a conference for casual games companies, one of the big messages was "there are two people making money on FB games: FB and Zynga."

While me and others may hate their games and their model, (which essentially punishes you for playing the game for too long) the model has worked.

Now are they guilty of oversaturating a market that was already filled to the brim? Yes. But they didn't build a business around "Farmville" (which was hugely successful, mind you, and a year ago every company was trying to jump on the bandwagon as every independent analysis basically said "their profits will only continue to grow"), they built it around:
a) a sound monetization model
b) incredible analytics

It's also worth noting that their model is one of the few that is successful in China, as most other gaming companies simply have their games pirated over there, to such absurd degrees as the existence of an unlicensed Angry Birds theme park.

I don't like Zynga's games, nor do I like what the freemium model is doing to the industry, but to say they short-sightedly built an empire around a game you knew wouldn't work, because you don't like the game, is assinine.

"You will still need a Facebook account to play the games. Zynga... will utilize Facebook Connect."

What the hell?

I Said: freemium

Here's the problem.

People will pay small amounts to save time in a game on a whim.

For a game like WoW, where people sink YEARS of their life into it, not such a bad idea to let some stuff be sold for real monies.

But what Zynga did is make the base amount of game possible and then force you to pay money to derive any enjoyment.

They've sold you a free box of chocolates, but when you open the box, there's only wrappers in there and they charge for better colors of wrappers but they don't even OFFER chocolate.

I mean, mafia wars was cool when it was on a TI-82 and you could play it in math class. But we're not 13 anymore. I can and do play REAL games in my free time. Plenty of good free ones out there.

doglover: Here's the problem.

People will pay small amounts to save time in a game on a whim.

For a game like WoW, where people sink YEARS of their life into it, not such a bad idea to let some stuff be sold for real monies.

But what Zynga did is make the base amount of game possible and then force you to pay money to derive any enjoyment.

They've sold you a free box of chocolates, but when you open the box, there's only wrappers in there and they charge for better colors of wrappers but they don't even OFFER chocolate.

I mean, mafia wars was cool when it was on a TI-82 and you could play it in math class. But we're not 13 anymore. I can and do play REAL games in my free time. Plenty of good free ones out there.

I agree with you: Playing Mafia Wars today is retarded. It was fun on the TI-82 in math class. I also agree with you: Zynga games aren't fun and neither are games that use the monetization model.

BUT these are subjective opinions. Mafia Wars on a calculator was played by gamers with no alternative. FB exposed this type of game to millions of people who never knew any other version existed and have no interest in playing better mafia games. Zynga's model, while annoying to people traditionally viewed as "gamers", is very successful with casual gamings target audience: Mothers and older people. People who don't have much to compare it to, and even if they did they enjoy games where there's little monetary and time commitment. They buy solitaire when it's already pre-loaded onto their PC. They drop $5 on FB money and can pump another 5 hours out of their games that all use the same mechanic, so are all familiar to them, and there's enough "social elements" that they feel as though they're playing with friends.

The problem Zynga has is its model ONLY works on FB. These folks are not going to follow Zynga to another site. Social games work when you have a social network and introduce games later to it, not the other way around. And so if Zynga takes its ball and goes home, the people on FB will play Farmadia and the plethora of other games out there.

When you and I discuss these games, yeah, they aren't "Real games" by our definition. But these games were never meant for "real gamers" to begin with. Look at how well Hidden Object Adventure games do. I think they suck compared to almost any other genre, as they are essentuially "seek and find" games from the highlights magazine. But they do gangbusters business generating large profits for huge companies. That's the same audience. They want to spend maybe 20 minutes - 1 hour playing at a time and are often distracted. Mothers and older people.

I Said: But they do gangbusters business generating large profits for huge companies

Because no one's caught on. Zynga's already drying up.

It was an incidental hit for a time due to novelty.

But now that it's over, the market's contracting like the dead sea. Soon it will no longer support the life it once did.

Sure, some level of casual gamers will remain, but in order to succeed like Coca Cola, you have to have a product that's actually good. Farmville and the like are okay, but they're not great and their attempts to get real money for digital goods wears thin quickly. They're snake oil hucksters but it's not the old west. Facebook isn't just another mining town, Facebook is the ONLY town.

doglover: Because no one's caught on. Zynga's already drying up.

It was an incidental hit for a time due to novelty.

But now that it's over, the market's contracting like the dead sea. Soon it will no longer support the life it once did.

Sure, some level of casual gamers will remain, but in order to succeed like Coca Cola, you have to have a product that's actually good. Farmville and the like are okay, but they're not great and their attempts to get real money for digital goods wears thin quickly. They're snake oil hucksters but it's not the old west. Facebook isn't just another mining town, Facebook is the ONLY town.

I agree to a large extent, BUT iOS developers are already using model as well. And look at the proliferation of game add ons and DLC for sale for "real games".

Freemium is a model that's going nowhere, especailly as it's already de-valued games so this new billion dollar market sees a gaming experience as being worth anywhere for $0 - $4.99

Geotpf: There's nothing wrong with the freemium model. Look at Team Fortress 2.

True, and all it takes is one purchase in the store and you have a permanent premium account. Even one $0.49 item gets you full access to everything. Granted, you have to put money in your Steam wallet first and you have to add a minimum of $5, but this is Steam we're talking about. If you're a PC gamer, you're spending money there anyway.