Why all the Zynga hate?

[Lord Krunk]

I'm going to play devil's advocate for a minute. At last year's PAX, I listened to a speech given by some of the PopCap developers - the same brilliant dudes who brought us Peggle. Their argument was that social networking and casual games are actually GOOD for hardcore gamers. Here's the analogy they used. There are plenty of hardcore film buffs in the world, but nearly everyone watches movies. Even people who watch TV a few hours a month are still likely to have a NetFlix account or visit the local Blockbuster.

All great and good, but if we're going to include browser devs then I'd still prefer to vote for the guys behind Canabalt and Robot Unicorn Attack. Just saying.

 

[HontooNoNeko]

I have nothing against Zynga personally its the mindless drones they command that I hate. I'm not saying all of them are mindless drones just the 40%(I assume that an accurate measurement) that followed a link saw Zynga vs Valve and said "I've never heard of valve... GO ZYNGA". If your going to vote for something at least show respect to the others as well.

If Zynga recruited you for a war wouldn't you want to know a little about the enemy? Maybe think "Am I on the right side, is our cause just?" or would you just go "FOR ZYNGA" and charge to your death?

 

[dalek sec]

I think my biggest gripe with them is that they flat out confessed to using less than legal methods with getting funds and the like. I'm not trying to start a flame war, just stating a opinion of mine.

To mods: Please don't ban me over this.

 

[PurePareidolia]

I don't hate them, but if Valve is in a competition, I'm voting for them every time. Valve is simply massively influential and has provided me with hundreds of hours of entertainment, there's no reason whatsoever not to vote for them above people I've never heard of until now

 

[TechNoFear]

Because one Zynga poster said "What is Valve?, I haven't Heard of Their Games"

I lost count of how many posters said they had not heard of Turbine last year (especially in the final vote vs Bioware), even though Turbine won the previous year (2008) and eventually won again in 2009.
Turbine did not make 'real' games, just MMOs.

Posters will tell you the only reason Turbine won MM 2009 is because Turbine 'cheated' by putting a small notice in the 'news' section of the launcher. (just as Zynga using FB is 'cheating')
They openly posted they were voting against Turbine (not for the other dev) because of it.
Those same posters will now tell you that Valve putting a larger advert in Steam was 'justified' to beat Zynga.

The big difference is the increased size of the community, which has attracted the interest of more devs, and so the size of the reaction (not the actual reaction itself).

 

[Tharwen]

I just hate the attitude of the people who came here to vote for them and the rough way in which they treated our poor forum.

 

[w@rew0lf]

Throughout the March Madness contest, I've seen a lot of Zynga hate and comments that any self-respecting gamer can't vote for that company.

I'm going to play devil's advocate for a minute. At last year's PAX, I listened to a speech given by some of the PopCap developers - the same brilliant dudes who brought us Peggle. Their argument was that social networking and casual games are actually GOOD for hardcore gamers. Here's the analogy they used. There are plenty of hardcore film buffs in the world, but nearly everyone watches movies. Even people who watch TV a few hours a month are still likely to have a NetFlix account or visit the local Blockbuster.

That's where PopCap wants the gaming industry to be. There are millions of people who have never played a video game before, or at least not until they tried Farmsville or Peggle or Bejeweled. The bigger the industry grows, the more mainstream it becomes, the more money and more developers will be drawn into making games.

I can see why hardcore gamers are turned off by Zynga, but casual and social games are not the enemy. If anything, they help gaming to become more mainstream.

It's a matter of pride. Plain in simple. No matter how petty it may be. People will go extreme and desperate measures when it comes to pride. All this banding together isn't a good thing either. Did you know that in most serial killing teams, statistically, the members probably would have never killed a single person if they hadn't meet their partner?

 

[UnkeptBiscuit]

snip

I think it's mainly because people are confusing this competition for a quality competition, whereas it's actually a popularity contest. If someone came up to me and said "Zynga are better than Valve", then I'd be inclined to argue the point. However, if someone came up to me and said "Zynga are more popular than Valve", then I'd agree with them. They are provable more popular. That doesn't mean they're any better though, and people need to realise that before getting so worked up about it.

I think that Zynga players are gamers. The same way that if you play Nintendogs, you're a gamer. It's a game. I still don't think Zynga are very good.

I have to disagree with this. Because I play a sport does not make me an athlete, because I go to school does not make me a scholar. Just because someone plays flash applications or nintendogs does not make them a gamer.

I have to argue against that. Dictionary.com gives the definition as 'a participant in a sport.' Therefore, playing a sport does make you an athlete. Going to school might not make you a scholar, but it does make you a student. Playing games like Farmville or Nintendogs doesn't make you the sort of hardcore gamer we here at The Escapist are, but it does make you a gamer. This is the only pro I can see to Zynga's existence: Their games may not be good, but at least it draws new people in to gaming, which is always a plus. From there, they can move on to Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing, Rock Band, and Pokemon, and then can be eased into hardcore with games like Zelda or Halo. I hate Zynga for entirely different reasons. They scam their loyal fan base into installing malware and other malicious crap to speed their advancement in their (admittedly crap) games. On top of that, their games are blatant ripoffs of other Facebook games that came before (Farm Town, anyone?). They don't deserve the success that they have, and I am awaiting their fall with bated breath.

 

[Jandau]

I don't bash Zynga because they are some kind of underdog of casual gaming or social network gaming.

I bash Zynga because they are running a scam...

 

[Flamma Man]

Throughout the March Madness contest, I've seen a lot of Zynga hate and comments that any self-respecting gamer can't vote for that company.

Of course no self respecting gamer would vote for that company. They've had a history of scamming their customers and every one of their games are a rip off, such as the whole Mob Wars law suit.

They also have extremely lazy programmers who, even said by fans, don't fix anything in their games. Not only that but two of their games, Vampire Wars and Mafia Wars are the exact same. The only difference between the two are the pictures and text, nothing more.

I'm going to play devil's advocate for a minute. At last year's PAX, I listened to a speech given by some of the PopCap developers - the same brilliant dudes who brought us Peggle. Their argument was that social networking and casual games are actually GOOD for hardcore gamers. Here's the analogy they used. There are plenty of hardcore film buffs in the world, but nearly everyone watches movies. Even people who watch TV a few hours a month are still likely to have a NetFlix account or visit the local Blockbuster.

That's where PopCap wants the gaming industry to be. There are millions of people who have never played a video game before, or at least not until they tried Farmsville or Peggle or Bejeweled. The bigger the industry grows, the more mainstream it becomes, the more money and more developers will be drawn into making games.

I can see where they're coming from, however this could also be a bad thing considering if people can make millions of dollars by making casual games why bother with making mainstream ones?

I can see why hardcore gamers are turned off by Zynga, but casual and social games are not the enemy. If anything, they help gaming to become more mainstream.

I'm fine with PopCap. Zynga on the other hand can go die in a ditch.

 

[Cody Bauer]

zynga...haha where do I begin.
basicallt the only thing people base zynga on is farmville. Now farmville lacks a story line, farmville lacks player to player chat or interaction, zynga also lacks the ability to come out with expansions, patchs, etc. zynga is just very limited in the whole facebook app ordeal. They are never gonna excel in any real gaming field. I honestly don't know how they beat valve. well I do, which was jost tell everyone on facebook to go to escapistmagizine and mindlesly vote for them. I bet 90 percent of the peopll that voted for zynga don't even know what blizzard, valve, bioware is? In my eyes they should not even e a contestant for march mayhem.

 

[S.Vimes]

Lets see so far we have claims that they re-brand other people's games this site has even seen (I may even remember to search for it) a video in which the company CEO admitted to using "Spy-ware, Ad-ware and every dirty trick in the book" (paraphrasing the guy there) to get the cash for their "Video Game Development" which as we noted earlier might not even be theirs.

We're also hearing claims that Zynga keep all the games "in Beta" simply as an excuse to ignore bugs and problems the player-base has with the games, they lure customers in to routines of microtransactions for buying in game stuff while hiding behind massive "It's a free to play game" adverts and marketing ( I know they almost certainly aren't the only ones doesn't make it right) then we get down to personal thing's and this whole March Mayhem Madness thing that's brought Zynga to the Escapist Spotlight.

Personally I'm in the Despise whats happening in the contest thing, yes some Facebookers may join us and be welcomed but for the most part we have swathes of people who have no clue whats going on or what the escapist is, Heck a few couldn't even spell Zynga ffs! Let alone comprehend who, what and why they are voting for and who the other companies are. There may be some nice new members coming in from all this, I stopped lurking just to help vote for Valve/Blizzard to try and out Zynga when I saw the extent the stupidity was getting too (Namely the point at which spamming facebook beat Square Enix I don't particularly like SE but I'm willing to admit to them be an example of a good Game Developer Zynga are advertisers and crooks so far it seems).

Also something that comes up every now and then is this Social Gaming aspect... I'm sorry did Blizzard not spend the last few years swimming in the money from a a game that Only lets you play with other people around? Did CoD6:MW2 Not sell Millions of copies on the basis of (*cough*controversy*cough*) online play with other real people as both team mates and opponents? second one probably a bad example but I'll keep it for now. Another notable thing that has cropped up a bit in these discussions, PopCap who seem to be aiming for the same market in a similar, but different, fashion creating games that *gasp* even the Hardcore gamers find entertaining, funny, worthwhile, not surrounded with dodgy business tactics, not mass spamming the site abusing a faulty voting system in a big F@#k you to people who actually like the banter and discussion this sight could have provided in this contest.

"ahem" *adjusts tie notice's wall of text he just wrote* sorry about that got a little carried away

 

[Kouen]

Question?

Why is the march mayhem or madness I forget which flooding to this section now?

On topic:

I Don't hate casual players at all nor Zynga players and in there own right Zynga are Dev's, although saying that I will say unoriginal ones (vampire wars - vampire bloodlines.. ) I Think it got up a lot of peoples noses the way that Zynga was advertising the poll where as the other devs never bothered, well up until 2nd April when Valve ran a Steam News BUT, I think that was Warranted considering the spamming Zynga have been doing in every section and I also hear every thread on there forum.

 

[Jolly Madness]

Zynga's been known to install unwanted toolbars, invade user's PCs (they CLAIM they've stopped doing that) and they're basically being greedy bastards who'll do anything to win an online competition with no price. That's why I hate Zynga.
Yeah... and they lost me a bunch of points in the brackets.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

I just dislike the whole concept of March Mayhem and Zynga and Turbine were the first ones to exploit it.
So, that's why people dislike them.