Hardcore Gamers Embrace Zynga

[Marshall Honorof]

Hardcore Gamers Embrace Zynga

Core gamers are too busy playing FarmVille to knock it.

All it takes is a quick trip to an internet gaming forum to hear that social games are ruining videogames forever [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuinedFOREVER]. The hardcore demographic may not be able to complain much longer, as a new study finds that the tastes of hardcore and casual gamers may be due to converge. Approximately one fifth of "core" gamers play titles produced by casual game behemoth Zynga, and the numbers are only going up from here.

The data comes by way of a report about Zynga player habits from gaming metrics company Raptr. Raptr measured how much time gamers spent playing games in a particular franchise as well as how many times per day they played. The results showed that while Zynga still has a ways to go to catch up with Halo or Call of Duty, people spend more time playing Ville games than Gears of War, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, and Grand Theft Auto combined. Zynga games also generally produce higher "conversions," or players who invest in the next game in the series.

While not all core gamers are Zynga-philes just yet, there is still a significant crossover. Games like World of Warcraft and League of Legends share up to 20% of their players with CityVille, and even Call of Duty: Black Ops has 12% of its demographic building cities on Facebook. A cross-section of Xbox Live gamers reveals that 30% of them play Zynga games, up from 20% only last year.

Even if Zynga's profits haven't been up to snuff [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/113301-Zynga-Profits-Take-a-Beating] lately, this study suggests that it may be able to win over hardcore gamers in addition to converting a non-gaming audience. All it needs is a sufficiently enticing crossover title. HaloVille, anyone?

Source: Raptr [http://blog.raptr.com/2011/09/27/zynga-report/]

Permalink

 

[RatRace123]

It's nice that the gap between "casuals" and "hardcores" is disappearing, I still think Zynga's evil though. And not for the "non-hardcore" reason. I won't get suckered in to their virtual crack, nor will I be their advertising puppet to get other people suckered into their virtual crack.
And I won't buy your goddamn tractor!

YOU WILL NOT TAKE ME ZYNGA!!!

 

[Abedeus]

The only game out of those I can consider "hardcore" might be StarCraft 2.

MapleStory? Huehuehue. CoD is basically one of the least hardcore FPS games nowadays. And WoW is the least hardcore MMO out there. LoL is incredibly casual, same with LotRO.

Also, hard to consider farmville a game. I mean, it's a BROWSER game where you go online for 5 minutes to set things up, then do more interesting things. Reminds me of Progress Bar Quest...

 

[RaikuFA]

im cooler than zygna or farmville

so yeah there we go

 

[Austichar]

It says that they've played then, but does it state how many play for longer than 15 minutes total?

 

[TimeLord]

Haloville. Heh. That made me chuckle.

Don't knock it! £10 says Zynga are taking notes!

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

98.6% of all statistics are made up on the spot

With no detail on how this data was collected...how can we even begin to believe them?

So, biased charts, meaningless graphs and highly biased findings. Looks like a UK tabloid to me.

And in other news, who the hell cares? And are we still using that silly "hardcore" word still?

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Where do they get their figues and secondly is it any surprise that WoW and CoD players(or rather peopel who bought those games) play Zynga games? There are a ferocious amount of people that play those games it would not be a stretch that the more people that buy those the games the more of those gamers also game Zynga games.

At least pick something besides a game that even dogs play because it is so popular.

Also not everyone hates Zynga due to them making glorified flash apps that are time waster between waiting for replies on Facebook they also have dodgy practises.

 

[Marshall Honorof]

Hey all,

People wondering about Raptr's methodology should check out the full report [http://blog.raptr.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Zynga-Report.pdf], which details its data-gathering methods on the second-to-last slide. The information isn't super-specific, but based on how Raptr collects data in the first place, the information should be accurate.

 

[genericusername64]

C'mon guys after all the threads and boycotts and complaining I thought we were better than this.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Haloville. Heh. That made me chuckle.

Don't knock it! £10 says Zynga are taking notes!

Zynga loves taking notes from people and putting them in the bank. Also I forgot to say Zynga are not casual games they are social games. Casual games are stuff like Cooking Mama that you play for an hour every couple of weeks or something similar. Social games are where you get better by spamming friend invites and annoying your friends on Facebook.

 

[Xeorm]

Hey all,

People wondering about Raptr's methodology should check out the full report [http://blog.raptr.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Zynga-Report.pdf], which details its data-gathering methods on the second-to-last slide. The information isn't super-specific, but based on how Raptr collects data in the first place, the information should be accurate.

Where it says "based on data from our social network program"? Ie, didn't give much information at all.

Especially as you can swing data to look favorably for you whatever the data is. For example, their statement isn't "Users play more ville games than popular console games combined", It's "Raptr users play more".

Which ends up being quite biased, imo.

 

[Beryl77]

I don't really care about hardcore and casual gamers, let the people play what they want but I'd like to know more about how this statistic was made. I never fully trust a statistic, even less one where we have no information on how it was conducted.

Edit:

Hey all,

People wondering about Raptr's methodology should check out the full report [http://blog.raptr.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Zynga-Report.pdf], which details its data-gathering methods on the second-to-last slide. The information isn't super-specific, but based on how Raptr collects data in the first place, the information should be accurate.

Still not really that much information.

 

[jericu]

Did this report measure if people played Cityville on a regular basis, or just if they had ever played it?

Because, if the latter, this report basically means nothing. Plenty of people can't honestly say they haven't played, at some point, a Zynga game. Hell, I played Farmville once. For thirty seconds before becoming bored. Would I be counted as one of the hardcore gamers in this survey, PROVING that people who bash on casual games are a vocal minority and in reality pleanty of hardcore gamers enjoy Zynga games? (Not that I have any particular distaste for casual games.)

If it was the former then this would have a bit more weight. Otherwise, it's just pointless, meaningless fluff.

 

[StrixMaxima]

I'll embrace Zynga. I'll embrace it so hard its brain will pop out its skull.

I think this pool is dubious, to say the least. Looks like number-wrangling to me.

 

[Baldr]

Haloville. Heh. That made me chuckle.

If you wanted to crossover the core and casual audiences by combining a Zynga game with a core game, I wouldn't think that Halo is a good option. Don't get me wrong, I have all the Halo games and each one has more than one playthrough, and I plan on getting the remake, but I would have picked something more "core", such as Fallout 3 or Dragon Age Origins or Bioshock or Assassin's Creed.

But I guess Haloville got the message across.

Assassin's Creed and Dragon Age both have social network games already.

 

[ultrapowerpie]

Never heard of Raptr... at all.

I've read teh report, I find it dubious at best and to look at it with a grain of salt (me being a Math Major, I can say that like I'm an expert. woooooooooooooooo )

No but srsly, I really don't think this is that accurate, especially due to the complete lack of statisics. All this is a bunch of graphs and charts, that can easily be fudged. Granted that anything can be fudged, but having raw data really helps to make this... you know, an actual report, and not just a Power Point for Execs, which is what it is.

I've read actual studies with statistical findings. That is not a complete statistical finding.