Zynga Clones Go Physical With FarmVille Hungry Hungry Hippos

Karloff

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Zynga Clones Go Physical With FarmVille Hungry Hungry Hippos



Zynga takes its properties offline and turns them into boardgames.

It's the ouroboros for the modern age; Zynga, in partnership with Hasbro, will take several of its most popular virtual brands and make them physical. CityVille, FarmVille, Words With Friends and Draw Something will all get the boardgame treatment, and are due out this fall. Just in time for Christmas, in fact.

"For the first time," said a Hasbro spokesman, "players will be able to play Words With Friends, CityVille and FarmVille online and face-to-face." Kind of, anyway; the games themselves are being wedded to existing titles, so CityVille becomes Monopoly but with skyscrapers, FarmVille becomes Hungry Hungry Hippo but with pigs and cows; funnily enough, Words With Friends and Draw Something become Scrabble and Pictionary respectively.

Each game comes with some electronic bennies - mainly in-game cash, which can then be used to buy virtual items - but this will only appeal to people already invested in the games the coins relate to, not to anyone who picks up, say, CityVille Monopoly for its novelty value. It's not a completely trivial benefit; the CityVille Monopoly coin, for instance, would cost about $10 if bought online.

The RRP hovers between $19.99 (Words With Friends) to $24.99 (CityVille), and most of these are due sometime in October or later this fall. Given recent events [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118838-Zynga-Staff-Prepare-to-Sell-Diminishing-Shares] Zynga may be pleased to see a little extra cash this Christmas, but to me these look suspiciously like the kind of thing a non-gaming relative buys someone who games, because "it's just like that thing you like." Then it sits on a shelf gathering dust until it can be safely shuffled off to a garage sale.

Source: Joystiq [http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/cityville-monopoly-farmville-hungry-hungry-herd-words-friends/story?id=16924597#]


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Azuaron

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Zynga, famous for (sometimes illegally) cloning online games, strikes a deal with Hasbro to start (legally) cloning meatspace games.
 

Ralphfromdk

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Boudica said:
Sounds kind of neat. I would love to play some of these with family and friends :D
Then why don't you go out and buy: Monopoly, Hungry Hungry Hippo, Scrabble and Pictionary?

No need to wait untill their hellspawn is spewed out, just go get the originals now for way less than what the Zynga copies are going to cost.
 

saintdane05

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Azuaron said:
Zynga, famous for (sometimes illegally) cloning online games, strikes a deal with Hasbro to start (legally) cloning meatspace games.
The majority of these games are actually owned by Hasbro.
 

saintdane05

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Boudica said:
Ralphfromdk said:
Boudica said:
Sounds kind of neat. I would love to play some of these with family and friends :D
Then why don't you go out and buy: Monopoly, Hungry Hungry Hippo, Scrabble and Pictionary?

No need to wait untill their hellspawn is spewed out, just go get the originals now for way less than what the Zynga copies are going to cost.
I have those already. Little novelties and the such would be nice. Also, I like FarmVille ^^
I recommend you hide. For your sake. The "Hardcores"... they will come. Zynga and their games are usually treated about as well as Chris Brown's wife.
 

Blazing Steel

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Was about to get pretty mad that Zynga is now copying board games aswell as online games, but then I realised their not stealing ideas from other companies, they're teaming up with them to creat different vairants. This is no different to Lord of the Rings monopoly or disney cludo.

Boudica said:
Sounds kind of neat. I would love to play some of these with family and friends :D


Good luck because people will kill you and chop you into pieces for saying that. I for one salute you.
 

The White Hunter

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Good for them, not stealing ideas for once.

EA are still gonna sue them for every last drop of blood though.
 

Azuaron

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saintdane05 said:
Azuaron said:
Zynga, famous for (sometimes illegally) cloning online games, strikes a deal with Hasbro to start (legally) cloning meatspace games.
The majority of these games are actually owned by Hasbro.
Which is why it's legal.

Captcha: marry me

WTF no. Solve media: turning into a creepy stalker.
 

Berithil

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Mar 19, 2009
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Wait.... isn't words with friends just an facebook version of scrabble? I'm gonna guess that there won't be anything different except the words with friends name on the box and a higher price.

As for the other ones..... I really don't care what they do. This is pretty much the same as LOTR monopoly or Star Wars stratego. Just putting a new variation on already existing games. And they're doing it legally so......

Boudica said:
Ralphfromdk said:
Boudica said:
Sounds kind of neat. I would love to play some of these with family and friends :D
Then why don't you go out and buy: Monopoly, Hungry Hungry Hippo, Scrabble and Pictionary?

No need to wait untill their hellspawn is spewed out, just go get the originals now for way less than what the Zynga copies are going to cost.
I have those already. Little novelties and the such would be nice. Also, I like FarmVille ^^

Ooohh, you had better be careful. In case you didn't know, Zynga games are vilified on the escapist...
 

Krion_Vark

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The only one I would be interested in would be the Words with Friends one. Because the WwF is a different bonus layout than for scrabble.
 

Ninja-Jordan

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Blazing Steel" post="7.384270.15234305 said:
Was about to get pretty mad that Zynga is now copying board games aswell as online games, but then I realised their not stealing ideas from other companies, they're teaming up with them to creat different vairants. This is no different to Lord of the Rings monopoly or disney cludo.

Well considering that words with friends is litterally scrabble with a different name, scramble with friends is boggle with a different name, draw something is pictionary with a different name, its more like copying the game and changing the name rather than releasing the same game with a different theme.
 

Darknacht

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So the company that is seen as evil and focuses on casual video games is joining forces with the company that is seen as evil as focuses on all types of casual games? Its kind of surprising that they did not think of this sooner.

[sub]With our evil combined we shall take over all casual gaming. Hahahahahaha!!![/sub]