Zynga Can Totally Double Its User Base

[vansau]

Zynga Can Totally Double Its User Base

You guys, you've got to believe Zynga. The company can totally get twice as many people playing their games. They're serious. For real!

The past month hasn't really been a good one for Zynga's public image. Even though it thinks it's <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114505-Zynga-Officially-Values-Itself-at-1-Billion>worth at least $1 billion, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114077-Zyngas-Profits-Continue-To-Drop>its profits have been steadily dropping, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114251-Temp-Steals-100k-of-Stuff-from-Zynga>it had $100,000 worth of stuff stolen by a temp worker, and then there are the <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114167-Zynga-CEO-Denies-Bullying-Tactics-Over-Stock-Options>accusations of CEO Mark Pincus using bullying tactics to take back stock options from certain employees. Now, the company is trying to woo investors by claiming it will be able to double its user base.

Speaking at a Boston hotel luncheon with potential investors, Pincus addressed the fact that, in spite of a huge active user group, only a small portion (about three percent) are really generating money for Zynga:

Most of Zynga's revenue comes from more than 227 million monthly active users who buy virtual items such as houses and tractors while they play free games on the Internet. Only a small portion -- about 7.7 million for the 12 months that ended September 30 -- are considered unique paying players.

"We could see that doubling," Pincus said at the luncheon at a Boston hotel. He did not give a time frame for meeting the target.

According to Pincus, Zynga's daily average users on mobile devices is up to 13 million from 11.1 million a couple of months ago. On top of that, Words With Friends has been a huge success for the company, up to 10 million users from 2 million last year. While those are certainly promising signs for investors, Pincus's vague statement feels a bit too much like something you'd hear from the dude on the street corner who wants to borrow a couple of bucks but promises to mail it back to you, with interest.

Source: <a href=http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/08/us-zynga-ipo-idUSTRE7B724U20111208>Reuters via <a href=http://www.gamepolitics.com/2011/12/09/zynga-potential-investors-we-can-double-our-user-base>GamePolitics

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[imnot]

Zynga can totally suck my dick.

Oh man I cant belive I actually wrote that...

OT:I still find people paying for a virtual picture of a cow really stupid :/

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

I do not think they understand that this is the reason pyramid schemes fall apart.

 

[AstylahAthrys]

Why would anyone pay for anything Zynga? I mean, I guess I might have inadvertently given them revenue before via ads when checking out their games before, but they're just so boring. They limit how much you can play them with freaking energy, and then if you want to play more, you have to pay real money for it. Yeah, no. I don't want to be told how long I can play a game for. Even though I don't really want to play your games much anyway.

Castleville sucks by the way.

Also, relevant:

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

"We could see that doubling," Pincus said at the luncheon at a Boston hotel.

You could see it halving. Or quartering.

Welcome to economics, Mister Plagiarizer.

 

[Nenad]

I think it's tome for...

ABANDON SHIP!!!

 

[Formica Archonis]

"We could see that doubling," Pincus said at the luncheon at a Boston hotel.

I could see frog aliens from another universe bombarding the planet with "swampification" bombs. I mean, if I was a frog alien from another universe, it's what I'd do. Seems perfectly reasonable.

Doesn't really speak to the likelihood of it happening, though.

 

[tippy2k2]

Maybe I'm wrong here (God I hope not) but it seems that as more and more people realize how sleazy this company is, they'll finally start losing customers.

I uninstalled Words with Friends as soon as I saw who developed it. They wanted access to all the contacts on my phone...FUCK that, there's no way in hell I'm going to trust a company like Zynga to that kind of information.

 

[Worgen]

They can totally all their users, all they need to do is cut each user in half and BOOM, double the users.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

They can totally all their users, all they need to do is cut each user in half and BOOM, double the users.

You only need one hand to play their games anyway, right?

 

[Worgen]

They can totally all their users, all they need to do is cut each user in half and BOOM, double the users.

You only need one hand to play their games anyway, right?

With the voice software you don't even need that, so they could triple their user base with 3 cuts.

 

[Xanthious]

Every time I see Mark Pincus's name brought up in an article and don't see the words debilitating painful ass cancer immediately following it I get a little sad inside. He is a fucking horrible human being on every level.

 

[Sylocat]

"We could see that doubling," Pincus said at the luncheon at a Boston hotel.

You could see it halving. Or quartering.

Welcome to economics, Mister Plagiarizer.

Actually, I see them quadrupling my interest in Facebook and all of their "ville" games!


Of course, 0 times any number or percentage will only result in zero, but don't tell Pincus that, he's still struggling with adding and subtracting.

On the other hand, so is pretty much everyone who actually pays money to play Zynga games.

 

[Sylocat]

They can totally all their users, all they need to do is cut each user in half and BOOM, double the users.

You only need one hand to play their games anyway, right?

With the voice software you don't even need that, so they could triple their user base with 3 cuts.

You only need two cuts to get three pieces.

Or are you using Zynga shareholder math?

 

[Baldr]

Do this:
1. Take the games out of beta before release them public
2. Stop limiting progression based off friend connections, people are competitive, they pay for fast progression, but it should be at the cost limiting people that don't pay, this turns off people to social gaming and has had a huge backlash of the quality of games in the genre.
3. Take a page from PopCap and make games people enjoy playing. Leveling up buildings is not a fun game.
4. Change your company names, somehow this always seems to work.
5. If all else fails, there always breakfast cereal promotions.

 

[Stevepinto3]

I'm pretty sure that anyone that would actually want to play Zynga games is already playing Zynga games.

Also I think this shows some hope that casual gaming is not going to be a stake through the heart to hardcore gaming. Zynga can only get 3% of it's user base to monetize, compared to Valve's 20-30% in TF2. I think this should give companies a reason to re-evaluate the free to play model. Personally, I say the reason Valve is getting a higher percentage of users to monetize is because TF2 is a higher quality game than anything Zynga has ever made. Sure it's easy to get people to play a simple game for free, but if you want them to actually invest money in it you've got to make it an enjoyable experience.

 

[Robert Ewing]

Double their user base? I really, really doubt it Zynga.

Sure you got lucky the first time with the rise of casual gaming, and generally being in the right place at the right time. But let's face it... That whole craze? It's flat lining now.

With the recent loss of a few million or so on your user base, I don't even think you could get it back up to it's previous high strength, let alone double it. Sorry, but all I can see is a slow slump down for the Zynga user base.