Zynga and the Rise of the New Gamer

[jmoore4ska]

Also games do go a long way to teach you how to play, the fact that there is a tutorial of a difficulty curve proves it. And if you have two brain cells to rub together but don't know what R3 is, you try every button and if that doesn't work you go check a manual, and if that doesn't work you ask somebody, and if that doesn't work you go look online (and the people that uses farm-ville knows how to google, hell my mom knows how to google and she can't even access her facebook account).

The information is there and not everybody that knows it now was carried by the hand THE WHOLE WAY, at the most they got themselves to ask for help.

People that play farmville want to play farmville, they are not sitting there moaping wishing they knew what to do when that tutorial tells the to crawl under the pipe...

This reminds me of a story i heard about Mass Effect 2. Apparently some bioware forumite's parent was interested in playing, but gave up because neither the tutorial or the manual explained that you use the WASD to move Sheperd. Every gamer just assumes this is common knowledge, haha. Of course, if he had asked his gamer son, like i'd wager you'd suggest, i bet he would have had a great time.

And yeah, i would like to see how many people have been enticed by Farmville into joining the greater gaming community in earnest. If anything, i would think trying out more games would only convince them to stick to Farmville in order to avoid the difficulty.

 

[DMac the Knife]

Also, to reiterate: Zynga isn't popular because it is accessible. There are plenty of flash game developers who design good, simple, and entertaining free games. Zynga is just well known because it is on facebook and shamelessly spams the notifications and newsfeed of anyone who is friends with a player. If PopCap made a Facebook game, then made sure that it showed up in your feed 25 times a day or more, i'm sure they would get a lot of attention, at the expense of their integrity.

It is time for people to learn the basics of FB. You can hide all of the annoying newsfeeds for all of the stupid flash games on FB without hiding your friends' real posts. If it wasn't for this ability I would have given up FB shortly after creating my account.

I know the whole deal, but that isn't the point. You shouldn't HAVE to learn anything about FB to stop from being spammed. Nobody likes it. FB has the power to stop it, but does not. It isn't about being ABLE to stop it; it's the fact that there's something you need to stop in the first place.

Fair enough.

 

[jmoore4ska]

There are lots of free games yes, but not as many with players numbered in the millions. Many people will play Farmville because it is a giant but will not see other such free games and thus have limited access to the breath of gaming.

I'm posting too much. Oh well. What i meant was that there are definitely alternatives without a prohibitive price or difficulty barrier, if only the Zynga-ers would look.

I realize now that you know about them, but somebody has to tell our Farmville-ing friends that they're options aren't as limited as they might think.

 

[Jaqen Hghar]

As one who have "played" some of the Zynga games, and tried to follow their forums a bit:
The only thing Zynga did was to steal someone else's idea, make the art more cartoony, then put it out on Facebook. For some reason they got more users than the games they stole from. Not sure why.

Anyway, most of the users of Zynga's poorly drawn spreadsheets doesn't care about Zynga at all. Heck, most of them have no idea how to spell Zynga. I'd say 90% of their users have no idea how a forum works. 90% of those who do cannot spell worth shit, which indicates to me that they are stupid. Reading Zynga's forums are painful, at least when you are used to the forums here at The Escapist.

All the users ever do are complaining about bugs and errors that should be fixed (which probably never will be fixed), ask for new things they could put in the "game" (which is stupid since most of their "games" are still in beta), or they try feverishly to get more neighbours in order to get new things. It's all a frikkin' pyramid scheme.

I have to give it to Zynga, they are pretty clever when they say their "games" are in Beta all the time. Those who play their "games" have no idea what a beta-version really is, so when Zynga say that "Oh, you cannot get your money back even though you didn't get your black barn. The game is in beta you see, so these things happen" the users think it is normal.

I despise Zynga for what they are, and I hope they lose against Valve. I also hope they will be torn to shreds by their voting fans when said fans realize that Zynga ain't gonna give them shit for voting.
(But knowing Zynga I am sure they are going to actually give them something to commemorate the "struggle" to become the best developer... it will be on sale for five bucks in all their game-stores)

If I want to play something casual I'd rather play eRepublik. A game where you can actually learn something.

 

[Knight Templar]

I get the feeling that all Zynga has done is open up a new market and not made new gamers. The people who play Farmvill are not likely to ever get into modern games, for the same reasons you cite and they are not likely to call themselves gamers.
My observations are from personal experance (the worst kind of evidence) so I could be wrong, but thats how I see it.

You do realise that Farm Ville is totally ripped off from Farm Town, right?

Same with Mafia Wars and Mob Wars?

Jeez, wish the Escapist would hire some writers who actually knew the background of whatever they were talking about.

I didn't mention it because it wasn't important to the point I was making.

I suppose Zynga being crooked [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/96024-Zynga-CEO-Admits-to-Being-a-Scammer] was as well?
They trick consumers to get money, that would be as much a part of their success as targeting non-gamers.

EDIT: This is a big part of why I dislike Zynga, it seems to me that they view games as a way to make money, rather than something people enjoy.

 

[jmoore4ska]

If I want to play something casual I'd rather play eRepublik. A game where you can actually learn something.

Heck, or any of the Sims. At least the sims doesn't make you follow its own schedule; you can play at your leisure, unlike the Zynga herd, or *shudder* Evony.

 

[Mcface]

Still doesn't explain what they are doing on a GAMING WEBSITE, though. If this was a contest for best Application, sure, more power to them. But how can you defend them against real gaming devs, with real gamers voting for them?

where pretty much all of the original members dislike them even being allowed in the contest, let alone allowed to mass thousands of people from facebook to vote. People who are not escpaists, should not vote for the Escapists favorite developer. These thousands of people will never even come back to this site.

It is becoming increasingly clear Zynga has money in this site. Only a matter of time before they are in the ad space.

 

[Jared]

A great and wholly true article.
I still don't like Zynga, though.

Same here. I cannot disgaree with anything that was said, its true, unfortunatly. But...I still deep inside dont want anything to do with em

 

[Jaqen Hghar]

Heck, or any of the Sims. At least the sims doesn't make you follow its own schedule; you can play at your leisure, unlike the Zynga herd, or *shudder* Evony.

Ah, yeah. Evony. The only thing worse than Zynga.
That's one of the things I really hate about the "games" Zynga make. You have to visit and do stuff on them every day. Of course, you can always buy something which makes it easier for you to take a day or two off. For real money of course.

 

[Adonan]

Despite the truth behind some of his words, I find Shamus's article to be a complete work of asshattery. Of course I'm nerdraging and whatnot, but honestly. Zynga makes half-assed flash chores that require you to open up time from your schedule to be able to have success with them. And for what? So you can have a nice looking garden? Or a mafia account with lots of money? Then what happens? You keep going till the next patch, which adds a new plant or two. Oh, that's wonderful, you decide to add +200 to your already filled-with-shit garden. Then you have somewhere to go. All your plants are dead. Your once fertile garden of bright plants is now a crashed pile of wasted time. You glance at your money amount. You don't want to click through all the plotted land just so you can have a fictional garden that looks decent, only to have it destroyed eventually.

But hey. You didn't spend any money.
You did, however, waste who-knows how much time.

You download Team Fortress 2, which is only $20 bucks for what all the reviewers have been saying. You roll as a scout, because you think a faster class will help you. You die after running into a sticky grenade. You get frustrated; how is that kind of thing fair? And how can a sniper hit someone moving so fast? You sigh and respawn. What a waste of $20 You ask players for help, just about all of whom are friendly and laid-back. You even get a joke or two out of them. You soon find yourself getting into the groove, weaving around obstacles by making use of your double jump and landing on top of unsuspecting Heavies, batting them to death with your Sandman. You pull out your double-barreled Force-A-Nature and remind the demoman why he has more health than you.

Twenty bucks spent, yes. Twenty bucks WELL spent.

 

[HolidayBrick]

I blame Zynga for openly defrauding their customers. I don't care what else they have done, that's inexcusable.

 

[Mr. Mike]

You raise a very interesting point Shamus. Well put.

 

[jmoore4ska]

Ah, yeah. Evony. The only thing worse than Zynga.
That's one of the things I really hate about the "games" Zynga make. You have to visit and do stuff on them every day. Of course, you can always buy something which makes it easier for you to take a day or two off. For real money of course.

I have 2 roommates that play Evony daily. Together.

I like to think it wasn't the ads that drew them in, that they are better people than that. But then i realize that they'd still be playing evony, regardless, and i am disappoint.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Just as a point of fairness and order. Zynga are NOT the only FB/browser type game to be openly using dodgy tactics; and I'm sure Farmville is fun to play.

However, any routine psychological testing would show that Farmville can classify as a psychological addiction, where as great as Valve games maybe, they don't.

Next time you boot up Farmville, do you:

a) Set your mealtimes around Farmville?
b) Set your waking times around Farmville?
c) Sneak away to play Farmville?
d) Have ever played it to the point of illness?
e) Spent money that would have gone on food on Farmville.
f) Ever played it in the loo/bath?

Each of those is a sign of mental addiction. That's no longer a game.

If you haven't, then you're cool, keep playing - but the game is set up to try and instill Pavlovian responses in you.

And it has no bearing on intellect at all. As any smoker/drinker can tell you.

 

[jmoore4ska]

snip

The bad thing is that Farmville forces you to do most of these things in order to succeed in the game...

 

[Krelias]

Shamus makes a good point but i have to disagree on one aspect, the potential for Farmville and Mafia Wars fans to evolve to other forms of gaming. The Zinga frenzy is a social phemnomenon driven by the fact that is promoted by a social-networking platform and by the people's tendency to act like sheep anytime they can. I know a girl who plays Farmville just beaucause all her friends on facebook do. This is not a good premise for the expansion of gaming to a broader audience it's a good premise for the continued succes of facebook.

As an avid gamer i've always tried to get more of my friends into gaming and often i've stumbled across "browser gamers" (mostly Travian fans) who just refuse to give chances to other stuff cause they're to much into whatever they are playing to acknowledge that other stuff is better (i.e. they think travian is better than total war series). So I wouldn't hold my breath on browser gamers going into mainstream gaming.

 

[Caliostro]

First, to answer your "title" question: Why do people enjoy these kind of games? Because, as sad as it is, on average people are... basic, to be kind. Look at how much utter garbage becomes a phenomenal success without any claim to quality of any kind. Of the top of my head: The Transformer movies, Twilight, The Harry Potter movies (not to be confused with the books, which are actually good - also not to be confused with Twilight which is utter crap in all it's iterations), 90% of pretty much anything on MTV, MW2... If we start looking into it, the list is nearly endless.

On average people are like magpies, they chase the shiny things... Even if the shiny thing is a glossy turd.

As to the point of your article: I can understand where you're coming from, but I can't disagree more.

Don't get me wrong, I'll always welcome things like tutorials and good level design that doesn't simply assume you've been playing all your life. Valve is a good example of BOTH sides. Portal is a great example of good game design, as you're slowly eased into gameplay to the point where, by the time you're in the really hard puzzles, they feel easy as everything just comes naturally to you. Portal is the kind of game where you don't even notice how far along you've came until you look back, which is good. On the other hand, TF2 is about as welcoming to newcomers as a frontal collision with a brick wall.

"Pick a class!"
"...what? why? What class? what do they do? W-"
"Shut up and pick one ffs..."
"... ok...this one..."
"Ok, now kill stuff!"
"...what? how? I j-"
"Too late. You're dead. You suck."

Tutorial levels, incremental difficulty and such... All good. The thing is, there's a line to be drawn between "making things welcoming" and "dumbing it down". Yes, gaming requires you to learn a little about computers or consoles. Yes, it involves a time and money investment before you can collect your "return"... Here's the thing: Anything worth having is worth fighting for.

Sure, skate boarding is hard. I did some in my time. I wasn't particularly good to be quite honest, but I knew a few tricks. I never did a 900, but I could do some basic tricks, and it was awesome. It took quite a considerable personal investment to learn the little I did, but here's the tricky part: I had to. Under your line of reasoning, I should have just stood on the board and gone straight. I mean, sure I would never do anything even mildly similar to pulling tricks, but then again, I wouldn't have to try either!

You don't get to enjoy the feeling of a killer solo without some years of practice. You don't get to enjoy flying, if temporarily, without several months, sometimes years, of painful practice. And you sure as hell can't expect to enjoy a masterpiece without at least knowing the most basic stuff of the medium it's in. It's like saying "Sure guys like Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and Ernest Hemingway could write some interesting stuff... But you couldn't really enjoy it unless you knew how to read well. Some of their stuff is really hard to read... Perhaps they should have written it with simplified language so everyone could understand it. Like, fourth grader kind. Maybe do small comic books instead. Maybe Caesar could have been a 20 page comic? Simplified version for people who didn't understand the intricacies of the language so well...". Douglas Adams' works are very accessible, vocabulary wise, but if you can't read you won't understand a single page...

Sorry, if you want quality, you need to invest in it. Otherwise you get... Well... Zynga...

Raising accessibility is nice, dumbing down isn't.

 

[Rayansaki]

The problem isn't that they make casual simple games. I would be ok with Popcap being in the place they are now.
The problem is that the games are ripoffs of existing games, where the only original addition is the buy stuff for cash feature.

That, and the fact that great developer's like Santa Monica Studio, EA LA, EA Sports, etc. were left out of the contest to make room for them. Hell, Santa Monica would be my favorite if it was in.

 

[guyy]

I once tried to play Farmville, I played for 2 minutes, went off to do something else and 2 weeks later came back thinking I would have a lush eden only to find it all fucking dead!

Yeah, see, this is the problem. It's not like some boring flash game is beating Valve, this thing is an in-browser MMO(rpuger). That's why it's so stupidly popular: it's an MMO with a convenient addiction initiator right on your Facebook page. And Facebook itself is a sort of MMO for a lot of people. It's a potent combination.

Getting more people interested in, or at least accepting of, video games would be great, but I don't think we want to get half the planet involved in WoW: Flash Edition.