Why all the Zynga hate?

[FightThePower]

People are annoyed because they should not win.

If it's a contest about which is the superior developer, then Valve win. They make full releases, which is damn hard work; Zynga make flash games. It's like comparing McDonald's to a 5-star restaurant. The former is more popular, but the latter is obviously superior.

If it's a contest about which the Escapist community prefers, then Valve should win, because people prefer them. Most of the people who voted for Zynga just did so because Zygna posted an update on their fan page on Facebook, and swarms of people voted for that reason. These people are not part of our community, so why should they be allowed to vote?

If it's just a straight up popularity contest it's pointless because whoever has the most customers wins; might as well just go to Wikipedia and look up some numbers.

 

[MURPHYCHACHO]

I don't hate Zynga because of the hardcore vs casual gaming thing. I really couldn't care less about all that. I hate them for their blatantly ripping off other casual game developers like Playfish.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Being good at marketing your games doesn't make you a good game developer, that's what bugs me about Zynga. They don't bring innovation to the medium. I don't hate them for it, but gives me doubts about their place in the contest.

 

[sirdanrhodes]

Most of us don't hate Zynga. We hate those cunts who make multiple accounts and post one word comments in the March Mayhem contest.

 

[Contun]

Because their spam has brought a bunch of... people here to the Escapist.
I admit, some of them are alright but.... most merely came here to spam March Madness....

"Zynga will win dis competition u nerds lolololol!!!!!!!"
It gets old very quickly....

If they actually win I'd hate to see all the spam that we'll have to endure...
"WE TOLD YOU NERDS THAT ZYNGA IS BEST!!! AHURHURDUR!!!!"

They fail to realize that this is only a popularity contest... -.-

 

[Delusibeta]

They fail to realize that this is only a popularity contest... -.-

To be fair, the vast majority of people posting in that thread also would fall into that category. Although I concur with your point: it's hard to look at the comments of a Zynga post on Facebook and not dispair.

 

[Indecizion]

simple because theyre ruining march madness theres noway in any universe theyre a better game company than valve but yet theyre beating them so no sorry but fail so rage is inevitivle.

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

As a business looking to make money fine i can dig that. It's the people who play the games then suddenly think because they got high scores on FarmVille and other associated titles that they're the shite and are better than everyone else and the endless stupid spamming they do.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

If you have to ask that question, then you proably haven't been paying attention to the thread.

Zynga has admitted to being a scam artist, their games have been close to near copies of previous games released before it. Zynga does absolutely nothing new with their work and some of their games (Namely Mafia Wars and Vampire Wars) aren't real games, but rather user interfaces in which you click a button and they give you a description of what happened similar to Echo Bazaar for Twitter Users.I should also point out that on one occasion, I actually found a Twitter that is presumbly owned by them, voting for themselves. The lows in which they reach are astouding in my opinon.

But what proably ticks me off the most about Zynga is the fact that they can easily reach 80 million people in a matter of seconds by just posting on one facebook group, while Valve supporters have to go all over the internet and look for people. We actually resorted to going to 4Chan not once, but twice and the result was a spam of pictures from a mourge involving dead people in horrible accidents.

Is the Escapist getting a large increase in traffic because of this, but in my opinon, it is not worth all the hate. Coming from both sides.

 

[2xDouble]

The way I understand it, it's not casual gaming that's causing the problems. It's Zynga personally.

Honestly, I enjoy casual games once in a while. PopCap created fun, entertaining games that required skill, strategy, and/or reflexes in order to win. Most of PopCap's library is fully original and a credit to casual gaming. Zynga, on the other hand, is treating games like cocaine. They give you a hit for free, but to get anything better requires "just a small fee"... and then another, and another... Zynga doesn't make games, as such. They make glorified slot machines.

They also, as has been pointed out many, many times across all of the posts, have no original games. Like slot machines, they put different pictures on the exact same mechanisms. They outright copied other people's games (and in some cases, their own games. see Mafia/Vampire Wars, FarmVille/YoVille) and put it exclusively on Facebook.

The only thing they added was the requirement of bothering your friends to play so that you can get something in your game. Not even World of Warcraft's cult-like status actually REQUIRES you to spam and beg, and harass your own friends in order to win. As such, more and more are drawn in to a (lets all face it) boring, but shiny experience. It's a brilliant marketing tool, actually. They've successfully manufactured a drug that requires your friends to be using in order for you to keep from losing your buzz. THAT'S what I object to. That and the owner's blatant disregard for his customer's complaints, and a thinly-veiled attempt to look good by pretending to send money to Haiti. Seriously, it's not enough to scam your customers, you have to put false charity on top of it? Despicable! But I digress...

On the topic of WoW, one might argue that MMO games have a similar effect. It's true that most of the games do require human interaction for the higher-level content. But what you are drawing them in to is a rich, fulfilling experience, similar to watching a great movie or reading a good book together. The experiences are literally shared. (Seriously, I invite all of the Farmville players to join a book or movie club and see what kinds of experiences can be achieved in real social networking.)

The PopCap people are right. Casual games CAN be good for the gaming industry as a whole, as long as the developers don't forget their primary audience (namely us). I say let them do their things. But Zynga is toxic, even to casual games. If they don't have a major reform in attitude, the entire gaming community, casual AND hardcore, could be in serious trouble.

 

[internetzealot1]

That doesn't mean that they should win a contest for BEST GAME DEVELOPER.

 

[jboking]

snip

It's all because of march mayhem. Specifically, it's about people who assume that the winner of a particular round is automatically a better developer than the one they beat. Let's face it, when paired up with the big boys like valve and bioware, Zynga isn't much of a developer. We can accept Zynga into the industry and be fine with them spreading the video game love, I don't think anyone is actually against that. However, in a competition in the movie industry, the hurt locker shouldn't lose to Tooth Fairy(that movie staring the rock). Likewise, Valve games shouldn't lose a video games competition to Zynga games.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

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.

Sounds pretty valid. I dont like single posts of " GO ZyNGA !!!!!!!!!!!!111!!11!one!!!" cluttering up our community or having a big say in our competition. That said, all the Zyngs who've stayed, chatted n been constructive - Hi

 

[Drokmar]

Whoever decided it was a good idea putting Zynga in this competition is a retard.
Report/Ban me if you want but you know im right.Valve versus Zynga...Is that a joke?
The only logical explanation i see is for more Escapemagazine site hits.

 

[Danny Ocean]

*snip*

I don't mind casual games or gamers, I think they're great. They can frustrate me at times [footnote]Say I ask, "Are you a gamer?" "Yeah" "You played game X" "What's game X?" "That one from dev Y" "Who's Y?" "ARG!"[/footnote], but I work past that. I only mind that it's Zynga in particular, because of their shady business practices. Plus I played their games, and didn't like them. So I voted valve.

Hell, I love flash games. I think everyone does really. Kongregate is right up on my bookmarks. It's just... Zynga.


And besides, it's not like there wasn't a lot of anti-everyone-else sentiment from the Zynga crowd. It became less of Valve Vs Zynga and more Zynga Vs Everyone else. Of course people then got frustrated because they couldn't believe Zynga were getting so much support when so many seem to complain about their own games.

Other issues came in. No-one cheated, it was all kosher, but many thought it was pushing the boundaries. I mean, you can't blame the hardcore lot of taking it seriously when Zynga as a developer was posting adverts left right and center with a two-click voting system- they were taking it pretty seriously themselves. And then you get some Zyngalings coming in going "Nyar har no matter how hard you try you can't possibly win" *Waggles finger with thumb on nose* and it's understandable why the valve lot got pissed off. Especially considering that it took a lot of footwork from me and many others to get the votes we did, while Zynga just had a "Win Round" button that they pressed whenever valve took the lead.

 

[Pyotr Romanov]

The fact that the people who spam the vs thread don't even take a second to spam in a "Zinga hate" thread amuses me...