Zynga's Armored Car Explosion Rivals TV Viewership Numbers

vansau

Mortician of Love
May 25, 2010
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Zynga's Armored Car Explosion Rivals TV Viewership Numbers



Over 2 million people watched Snoop Dogg's explosive demolition of an armored car for Zynga's new Mafia Wars game. That's over three times as many people who watched Sportscenter.

Last week's high-profile destruction of an armored car at the hands of Snoop Dogg earned casual games publisher Zynga a lot of attention. Yes, it was big, loud, and dumb, but it also featured explosions and a famous rapper. The stunt - which was promoting the launch of Mafia Wars Las Vegas - was clearly worth whatever it cost, because Zynga says that over 2 million people viewed the live Ustream video of the event.

While 2 million viewers on the Web may not seem like a huge number when we're talking about a company that deals with more than 80 million users for just one of its games, it's still pretty impressive. The event drew a higher number of viewers than Ustream received when it broadcast the <a href=http://www.ustream.tv/twilight>world premiere of Twilight: Eclipse earlier this summer. Meanwhile, VentureBeat gave a great example of how the number was higher than the viewership many TV shows received last week:

The numbers rivaled prime-time TV viewership. Last Thursday, TV views of The Office and 30 Rock were 2 million households each. Zynga's stunt was a bigger draw than Parks and Recreation (1.7 million households), Sportscenter (683,000 households) and Tosh.o (550,000 households). Zynga gave 631,000 users a free virtual armored truck in the game.

Of course, this was the less-controversial marketing ploy that Zynga initiated for the game over the past few days. When the <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102938-Zynga-In-Trouble-Over-Mafia-Wars-Guerrilla-Marketing>company glued a ton of fake $25,000 bills to the sidewalks of San Francisco, which the city was none-too-pleased about. Seeing as how this tactic has resulted in City Attorney Dennis Herrera threatening Zynga with a lawsuit in order to recover cleanup costs, perhaps the publisher should just stick to blowing up cars in the desert.

Source: <a href=http://games.venturebeat.com/2010/08/23/zyngas-armored-car-explosion-stunt-draws-2m-views/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Venturebeat+%28VentureBeat%29>VentureBeat

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Tom Phoenix

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Mar 28, 2009
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There is something ironic about a gaming company focused on casual gaming marketing their latest game as if it was a game for the core demographic. I don't know, but this kind of marketing really seems like it comes from Activision's school of thought.

Anyway, I always thought of this as the ultimate Mafia Wars commercial:

 

Jared

The British Paladin
Jul 14, 2009
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Oh wow...thats alot of people x.x Just for a stunt, how many will actually play is another scary thought
 

Shru1kan

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Dec 10, 2009
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And of course this will turn into another game where people sink REAL money into a facebook game, and suddenly when it shuts down they'll be butthurt over it. But they'll get over it to play FarmVille 2.0 5 minutes later.

I hate people some days.
 

RogueDarkJedi

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Dec 28, 2008
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Part of it is because they probably promised something if you watched it, part of it is because they emailed everyone, most of it is because of the free ipad, and the rest is for the people that were just curious. I watched the final part (not live) and saw how stupid it was.

Ugh.
 

Blackadder51

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Jun 25, 2009
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Tom Phoenix said:
There is something ironic about a gaming company focused on casual gaming marketing their latest game as if it was a game for the core demographic. I don't know, but this kind of marketing really seems like it comes from Activision's school of thought.

Anyway, I always thought of this as the ultimate Mafia Wars commercial:
Sorry but that wasnt funny.

OP: Thats more then most big Australian shows get o_O
 

Keava

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Mar 1, 2010
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Not impressed by the number. The shows numbers are US only while Zynga broadcast was world wide. Whenever you want reliable data on your public you need to factor in its relation to the maximum possible so you really can't compare something that only people in US can watch at given time to something that everyone in the world can.
Maybe try comparing to Chinese television broadcasts for better measurement, where the numbers go up to 100 millions.
 

blarghblarghhhhh

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Mar 16, 2010
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Keava said:
Not impressed by the number. The shows numbers are US only while Zynga broadcast was world wide. Whenever you want reliable data on your public you need to factor in its relation to the maximum possible so you really can't compare something that only people in US can watch at given time to something that everyone in the world can.
Maybe try comparing to Chinese television broadcasts for better measurement, where the numbers go up to 100 millions.
not only that but im assuming this video was launched within the last week or so and the office season ended about a month ago. congratulations zynga you beat out a re-run of a tv show. woohoo.
 

Waif

MM - It tastes like Candy Corn.
Mar 20, 2010
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I watched the video too, and it was awesome ^~^! The numbers are quite significant when one considers that 2 million people were watching it on average. The city attorney should be thankful for the publicity, and the fact that Zynga gave it's city workers a reason to work. You know, earn their paycheck, instead of standing around. The city attorney isn't something that anyone cares about anyway. Zynga shouldn't care either.
 

Lt. Vinciti

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Nov 5, 2009
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....


Is this what we have come to? Watching a "music artist" fakely blow up an Armored Truck for point and clicky game on Facebook?

THIS STUFF ISNT EVEN THAT INTERESTING!

You can do more playing Pen and Paper games...