Why all the Zynga hate?

[Zappa Daddy]

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.

 

[smallharmlesskitten]

Spamming to win a contest
Not a real games develepor, Repetitive falsh APPLICATIONS, are not games
Mindless, brain dooling spam from their voters 'IF U VOTE FOR VALVE UR THE SUX" for instance.

 

[magicman4443]

I've never been fond of Zynga, but only because I've never even heard of them until about a week ago. I don't have a Facebook account, and I've never played Farmville, so I can't have much of an opinion.

The Zynga vs. Valve thread is a complete joke right now though. Over 400 pages of everything from porn to terrible trolls. That's what happens when someone tells 4chan.

 

[Zappa Daddy]

I have nothing that much against them, I don't hate them, I don't really have any strong feelings against them actually. But in a contest against them and Bioware, perhaps my favourite developer, I'm not going to be voting for Zynga.

Whatever.Frankly, I think March Mayhem is just a bad joke. I can't wait until it's over and we can all go back to normality.

I can totally see supporting your favorite developer over another. What I'm talking about are the comments that no self-respecting gamer can give Zynga any respect.

One can argue that I earned my gamer cred the hard way. Grew up with the Atari 2600 and old school arcades. As I went into jr high in the mid-80s, it was still not socially acceptable to like video games. I really don't see it being that much of a problem if my little boy doesn't go through some of the same BS I did because he loves video games.

Also, my wife loves FaceBook games, and she can't make me feel guilty for playing Team Fortress or Dawn of War II when she's spending time raising online turnips or playing FaceBook Scrabble. Win-win from my opinion.

 

[DuplicateValue]

The sheer amount of people getting mod action from posting in those threads is ridiculous. And hilarious.

Really, unless you actually work for one of the companies, you have no reason to feel so strongly about them.
I couldn't care less who wins. In fact, I don't even recognise half of the companies in this.

 

[Pimppeter2]

I originally voted for Zynga in the first two rounds becuase I play Farmville myself, and didn't really like the developer they were up against.

Now I just do it, if you'll pardon my language, "for the lulz"

 

[Zappa Daddy]

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.

Yeah, no doubt. I guess I support the trend that Zynga represents (mainstream gaming for everyone) rather than any of their particular games.

 

[Baconmonster723]

I cannot respect Zynga. The means they used to rise are pathetic and literally illegal. Their applications are boring and unoriginal (which can be said of a fair amount of games). I wouldn't have anything against them if they didn't use criminal methods to become popular. They may have many people who play these applications but that doesn't change the fact that due to their past business practices I will never respect Zynga as a developer. Or for that matter any developer who uses practices of the like.

 

[Rednog]

I hate Zynga being in the contest because it just brings in a flood of mindless zombies. I joined the escapist because it actually had a decent set of people who could actually muster up an argument or a sentence and to get away from the dribble that is internet speak, which is commonly used by facebook/social networking people. Seriously browse through the Zynga vs Valve thread and just see the gibberish that is posted by some of the Zynga voters, and there are some that said that they have absolutely no intention to stay here nor do they give a rats ass about this community, they just came to vote because Zynga told them to.

I'm also not a fan of Zynga because they have claimed to be a revolution/ evolution in gaming. I'm sorry but this is a spit in the face of every other game developer. Their level of coding was seen in the 90s, I mean common there is absolutely no revolution whatsoever. It falls into the zone of why people hate casual gamers. Gaming was a stigma for a long time and many of us grew up being labled a nerd or a dork for playing videogames. Chatting about games, wearing a gaming shirt, having a gaming poster in your locker would drive girls away. And now its like everyone calls themselves a gamer.

While not exactly practical and I think many people would disagree with me, I think there should be some kind of unique word for these kind of "games" so better differentiate between them and what some people would consider "real games".

Oh and just watching their videos, people in their late 30s-40s+ should not be acting like hipsters, I'm sorry but I'm in my mid 20s and even I realize its all BS.

 

[open trap]

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.

its not that they are casual but that they have sent swarms of peopkle to this site who for the most part spam yay zynga and make multiple accounts so they vote will count more than once, thats why i hate zynga

 

[Baconmonster723]

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.

 

[CyanLink]

I don't have a serious problem with Zynga but I don't think they deserve to have gotten this far in this tournament. Games like FarmVille, while fun, are not as good as Halo, Portal or Assassin's Creed or any of the "real" games that have months of development time put into them.

In short, I think letting casual gamers vote on this would be like letting 5 random teenage girls be the board for the Oscars. Twilight would end up winning everything but it wouldn't really deserve it.

 

[Snowalker]

I don't hate them.

Fixed it for you, not being a grammar Nazi, just bugged the living shit out of me.

Well, I could care less about the company, its the mere fact that we now have this huge flood of people on this forum who know next to nothing about gaming as we know it.

 

[Delusibeta]

1) March Mayhem's pratically designed for fanbases to sling mud at each other.
2) That Facebook Connect button gives Zynga an unfair advantage over the other developers.
3) Zynga has been spamming like nobody's business.
4) A combination of 2) and 3) is the only reason why they didn't get thrown out round 1.
5) Their CEO is an almighty jerk.
6) If there was a company least deserving of their success, Zynga is it.
7) Fear that the trend of brazingly ripping off and renaming games will spread outside Facebook. (Not specific to Zynga, most of the major Facebook developers do it)
8) Did I mention that their CEO is an almighty jerk?
9) A large proportion of Zynga's voters would fall foul of a minimum post limit of 20 characters. (That said, the same would be true for a proportion of Valve voters)
10) Some plonker invited /b/ into the thread, so there's an element of that.
11) Fear that the Escapist sold out.
12) Escapist staff failing to admit to any problem.
13) It's pratically March Mayhem tradition, as any Turbine fans will testify.
14) CEO. Almighty. Jerk.
15) Sterotypical "$@*! the casual gamers" response.
16) Only webgame developer in a field of .exe developers, if you get my drift.
17) Being pissed off at reason 4).
18) Built up by using scams. (See also reason 5)
19) Only became popular due to the large amount of spam their games generate.
20) Oh yeah, and their CEO is an almighty jerk.
Can't think of any more reasons.

 

[w-Jinksy]

they are not a real developer iv'e played flash games on newgrounds that were more fun and had better graphics story lines and sound.

 

[Mr. Grey]

As Furburt said...

-- it's actually a popularity contest. --

And as for Zynga itself...

I cannot respect Zynga. The means they used to rise are pathetic and literally illegal. Their applications are boring and unoriginal (which can be said of a fair amount of games). I wouldn't have anything against them if they didn't use criminal methods to become popular. They may have many people who play these applications but that doesn't change the fact that due to their past business practices I will never respect Zynga as a developer. Or for that matter any developer who uses practices of the like.

These two things are what I have to say about this whole mess. Good job you two.