Why all the Zynga hate?

[Pearwood]

Heh well I can't say anything about tactics cause I've never played it, 4 was interesting but I never finished it so again

 

[Fox242]

Pop Cap actually takes time to make some really, really fun games like Plants vs. Zombies. Zynga on the other hand, makes poor quality flash games that spam and scam the players that play it.

Also, Zynga doesn't deserve to win a Best Developer contest like March Mayhem. There is no way in hell that Zynga is better than any of the other developers that were in the tournament. Its games are pure shit and it spams and scams the people that play the games. They didn't deserve to be in this tournament to begin with. Zynga also fucked up everyone's bracket. That is why we hate Zynga

Fuck Zynga!

 

[Corn Cutter]

I don't literally hate them, from time to time I'm farming, too, just to kill some time.
But nevertheless I don't like them and I totally agree that they don't fit in this contest.

What I don't like mainly is the arrogance, seeing themselves as great(est) developers and pioneers only because of their massive amount of users but haven't released any stable game yet. To excuse the countless bugs they mark every game as "beta" so that noone can really complain. 80 million beta testers 24/7 and no final version in sight or even intended. That's ridiculous.

In addition to that of course I dislike the fact that every popular Zynga game is a rip-off and the inventors of the idea, mostly smaller app developers, have no chance to compete because of their unfair and unreliable advertising/spam practices.

And looking at the exchange rate real money <-> ingame cash you'll see that it's nothing more than scam. For a single house in farmville for example you have to pay the equivalent of $5-20. Yes, you don't HAVE to pay for their games but playing the free stuff only is like playing the tutorial level of a game all the time and you'll be bored soon. So many people see those new and shiny houses in the market area and just want to place them on their farm to add a personal style to it. Since not having to deal with great challenges ingame you can see most of the farmers as Junior Level Designers - with the difference that they can't really walk through their maps and get some action afterwards. Now just as a gag: Translate the pricing for single objects to a regular CS map like cs_italy. So many houses, you'd have to pay about $500 to get that style and atmosphere. and that's just a single map ^^.

I added some farmers I don't know personally just to get some really active neighbors and trying out the social part of it and a lot of them seem to buy oodles of BS just because nearly every week another set enters the market. And when the next one comes up they store the old stuff to get space for the next BS and won't ever use it anymore.
So I guess assuming these neighbors are the average of farmville 'customers' they pay every month at least $50 by 'playing' that buggy and laggy scam app just because they are kind of addicted and can't stop anymore because otherwise they had to admit that they wasted a lot of time and money for nothing - so they keep on farming.
Talking about free games here huh?

So THAT's why I don't like Zynga

 

[knight of zendikar]

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.

You sir are made of win you hit the nial on the head and restated my oppinion exactly what do these idiots get out of spamming a community they arnt even part of.

P.s. who ever had the bright idea to involve 4chan should be hunted down and killed. thats the reason the zynga vs. valve forum is spamed with everything from porn to walls of nothing but zynga is gay.

 

[robbaz]

I still dont get why people vote on zynga. Isn't this a gaming forum?

 

[Vladmir Oreilly]

If shallow, derivative time-wasters are the future are the future of the industry, then I'd rather the industry not have a future at all.

 

[Romblen]

The main reason I hate them is because on my facebook, I've gotten 50 requests to adopt a lost cow(or something along those lines)

That, and the fact that they're even in this competition. That's probably why I'm saying bad things about it now.

 

[henos]

If shallow, derivative time-wasters are the future are the future of the industry, then I'd rather the industry not have a future at all.

That's a little melodramatic, don't you think?

I mean, did a wise man not once say, "Can't we all just get along?" I think it was President Dale.

Anyways, the only reason I can think of valid hate for Zynga is that whole fiasco with scamming people. If the CEO changed after that, I wouldn't care, but to my understanding, it's the same guy, right? Well, that's pretty wrong. And the whole, you know, stealing artwork from other games. That's pretty bad too.

But, the games are popular. And popular things win in popularity contests.

I don't understand the big deal, though. I mean, I am new here, so that's probably the reason. But what happens to the winner of March Mayhem? Do they get anything? Anything at all? Does it carry any meaning?

What is the community here afraid of, in that manner? That people new to gaming will come here, see Zynga won, and start playing Facebook games rather than Mass Effect 5? Well, I don't see that happening.

But of course, I couldn't care less. The developer I registered here to vote for got knocked out in the first round!

 

[TheHoboHunter]

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

 

[Kollega]

Well, i hate them for being scammers and for having a name that sits on a tongue about as well as a pile of manure. Seriously, whoever came up with their company name should be shot, it's just ugly.

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.

QFT. There's just so much truth in that. I prefer to call it "Hell March".

 

[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.