Will Zynga Leave Facebook?

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
45,698
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Will Zynga Leave Facebook?


It's starting to look more and more like Facebook [http://www.zynga.com/] once and for all.

By rights, Zynga and Facebook should be a match made in heaven. Zynga, like a crazed Nazi mad scientist conducting unspeakably horrific experiments, needs bodies; Facebook, the hunchbacked, bug-eyed Igor of the relationship, has been all too happy to provide them. But as sometimes happens in these deals, Igor got tired of hustling around body parts for peanuts, so in March, he - that is, Facebook - made a few changes to the formula.

The decision to eliminate the spammy notifications automatically generated by games and the move toward a unified virtual currency called "Facebook Credits," which would replace Zynga-specific currency like Farm Coins and generate a 30 percent cut for Facebook, has some observers wondering if Zynga might be thinking about, or even planning for, going it alone at some point in the future. FarmVille is already directly accessible via MSN [http://www.farmville.com] users to log into it from the Microsoft portal.

Even more telling, as Gamezebo [http://www.gamezebo.com/news/2010/05/04/zynga-leaving-facebook] notes, is the fact that changes are continuing to come at an ever-quicker pace. Zynga has begun requiring email addresses from its players, presumably to facilitate communications without the need for Facebook, and in late April added, and then upgraded, in-game gifting to FarmVille. The changes will no doubt improve the gameplay experience for Zynga fans, but if and when the time comes, they'll also be of great use in helping Zynga stand alone and separate from Facebook.

Could Zynga pull it off? "Most social game companies plan to stick with Facebook and are embracing the changes, in part because they are dependent on Facebook and have no choice," Gamezebo wrote. "But, with 120 million players a year, a huge amount of investment, and 775 employees, Zynga may be big enough to be different and gamble to leave Facebook."


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Legion

Were it so easy
Oct 2, 2008
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They could try it but it will not end well for them. I think most people who play the games do so purely because it's on Facebook. It's a quick and easy application to get going and use due to it being on a site people regularly visit anyway; plus peoples Facebook "friends" have it.

As soon as any effort becomes necessary people will lose interest.
 

Jandau

Smug Platypus
Dec 19, 2008
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The one part of the article that caught my attention was:

"The decision to eliminate the spammy notifications automatically generated by games..."

THANK GOD! One of the main reason I only check my Facebook page once or twice a week is because I DO NOT CARE what someone is doing in Mafia Wars or whatever lobotmized excuse for a "game" they happen to be wasting their time with....
 
Feb 13, 2008
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I'd love them both to disappear under their own raging paranoia and programming issues, but my money's on only one surviving, and there being an empty slot next March.
 

Mr. GameBrain

New member
Aug 10, 2009
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I think this is a bad move by Zynga.

A game like farmtown, (where they take a perfectly fine game like Harvest Moon, remove the soul of it, beat the difficulty down to a cripple, then reanimate the disfigured remains, and paint it up like a whore), just wouldn't work on its own, even if it has the extra utlities Facebook provides the unwashed masses.

Unless it has millions to spend in advertising...
 

RheynbowDash

New member
Jan 26, 2009
1,386
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*ahem*
*gets up on soapbox*
*turns on megaphone*
*feedback*

FUCK ZYNGA

*gets off soapbox*
*turns off megaphone*
*retreats back to lurk more*
 

MR T3D

New member
Feb 21, 2009
1,424
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they'll lose a solid 10-20% of their playerbase and likely not gain any new people leaving bookface.
but the unrestricted advert potential makes me think its still a smart move.
your own site with 10's of millions of hits every day...damn, i can see the $$.
 

Jared

The British Paladin
Jul 14, 2009
5,630
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To be honest, I hope they would leave...they could prolly form a community on there own with all the popularity they have...and, make alot of money from it too
 

Jaqen Hghar

New member
Feb 11, 2009
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I hope they do this, because they will lose a lot of customers that way. Most of the people who use their apps doesn't know enough about computers or the intertubes, so they will simply not find the site. Of the few who will, only a handful will actually care enough to move on to another site. I'd say maybe 100.000 players will follow them. This is purely my thoughts (and fervent wish), and I have come to this conclusion by having lurked on their forums for several months. I am an ex-user of some of their apps you see.

Oh, and having followed what they do I can say this: Zynga operates the same way as drug dealers do. At first every update meant more items for your farm which only cost in-game money. Then more and more items cost real money. Now most updates have no in-game money items at all. So get them hooked with free stuff, then charge through their eyeballs.
 

Cherry Cola

Your daddy, your Rock'n'Rolla
Jun 26, 2009
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The_root_of_all_evil said:
I'd love them both to disappear under their own raging paranoia and programming issues, but my money's on only one surviving, and there being an empty slot next March.
Please let it be Pangea software.

They kick ass.
 

Christemo

New member
Jan 13, 2009
3,665
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hopefully they can fuck off my Facebook page once and for bloody all. and hopefully also dissolve to nothing but bad memories.
 

Timbydude

Crime-Solving Rank 11 Paladin
Jul 15, 2009
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That would be stupid of them. People don't play Farmville because it's a compelling game; they play it because it's on Facebook. The chances that such a person AND all of his/her Facebook friends would be willing to play the game elsewhere is slim to none.
 

JEBWrench

New member
Apr 23, 2009
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Even more telling, as Gamezebo notes, is the fact that changes are continuing to come at an ever-quicker pace. Zynga has begun requiring email addresses from its players, presumably to facilitate communications without the need for Facebook, and in late April added, and then upgraded, in-game gifting to FarmVille.
That was required by Facebook to help avoid cluttering people's walls.

Zynga isn't leaving Facebook. It's where their money comes from.
 

Virgil

#virgil { display:none; }
Legacy
Jun 13, 2002
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Andy Chalk said:
The decision to eliminate the spammy notifications automatically generated by games...

Zynga has begun requiring email addresses from its players...
These two things are actually related. Facebook removed the ability for applications to send users real notifications, and told them to ask the users for email addresses instead. It was a cheap solution to the problem of spammy applications. Instead of building tools for their users to manage/limit notifications or placing and enforcing limits on the applications themselves, they just moved the entire problem off of Facebook and into their users' inboxes.
 

JEBWrench

New member
Apr 23, 2009
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Virgil said:
These two things are actually related. Facebook removed the ability for applications to send users real notifications, and told them to ask the users for email addresses instead. It was a cheap solution to the problem of spammy applications. Instead of building tools for their users to manage/limit notifications or placing and enforcing limits on the applications themselves, they just moved the entire problem off of Facebook and into their users' inboxes.
Which is somewhat amusing, because the tools were already there.
 

Aurora219

New member
Aug 31, 2008
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Marmooset said:
I heard Zynga was planning on moving over to The Escapist.
No! You just ruined the surprise!

...

This makes me smile. Isn't it funny how things change?