Zynga and the Rise of the New Gamer

[muchoman613]

Saying Zynga's Farmville is a good game is like saying a pedophile is a good babysitter

It's just wrong. I hope this isn't the future of casual games, otherwise im going back to board games, humm snakes and ladders with a rewards point system and you need to get your friends involved to move up the board yes humm interesting yes

 

[Sjakie]

Insightful, as always.

indeed, if only the game industry was like that also.

 

[lacktheknack]

I don't hate Zynga because of who plays it, I hate them because they admit to being scammers and act like tools at awards ceremonies.

 

[LewsTherin]

TrueFact [sup]TM[/sup]

 

[Alar]

Zynga makes me want to do bad things to the people who created it. I'm a Computer Maintenance Technician, and the thought that someone -intentionally- used such a large social networking site, something that has exploded into this ridiculously massive domain, managed to not only scam most of the people who were playing their game into giving them their money through the use of spyware, malware, etcetera, and were then able to -get away with it after publicly announcing what they had done- makes me sick.

I'm sorry, but Zynga should not get any credit for being a good company. This is not the Rise of a New Gamer. This is just another sign of how far people will go for their greedy ambitions.

 

[Aptspire]

I think that we should start giving them a good transition into 'actual' games: First with flashgames, then Popcap, then Portal

 

[Eldarion]

Zynga makes me want to do bad things to the people who created it. I'm a Computer Maintenance Technician, and the thought that someone -intentionally- used such a large social networking site, something that has exploded into this ridiculously massive domain, managed to not only scam most of the people who were playing their game into giving them their money through the use of spyware, malware, etcetera, and were then able to -get away with it after publicly announcing what they had done- makes me sick.

I'm sorry, but Zynga should not get any credit for being a good company. This is not the Rise of a New Gamer. This is just another sign of how far people will go for their greedy ambitions.

Indeed, if you want to see casual gamers on the rise go look at PoPcap games, Bejeweled, those point and click adventure games your mom plays.

Not Zynga. This bunch of scammers do nothing but push stolen games to people who need something to do while they spend all day on facebook. These are not gamers.

 

[The Random One]

Amen to that, brother. I realized that gaming was becoming too complicated when my mom saw me playing Mario Kart: Double Dash!![footnote]Yes, I always put all the needless punctuation signs in a title accordingly. And also put them in the abbreviation, i.e. MKD!!. And I also always make sure the apostrophe is correctly placed when I write Saints' Row. That's just how I roll.[/footnote] with a friend and mentioned that she loved the game (referring to Mario Kart 64) but it was probably too complicated for her to play now. She was right. Some time ago I played Indigo Prophecy and was confused by how the tutorial teaches you to move your character using the right stick, which is something only needed for people who are only vaguely aware of what a controller is, then expects the player to quickly push the shoulder buttons in sucession. I doubt a non-gamer will ever aknowledge the shoulder buttons quickly enough.

And that's why the Wii is the most sold console, and that's why developers are insane to not go after it. I guess that they are spoiled with being able to do complicated stuff and get away with it, and wouldn't know how to work with a game in which they actually have to explain how each input works.

Mind you, I was rooting against Zynga for their poor business practices, not out of any phylosophical quandary. But I read your other article, and considered that before I booted up my browser I played a quick game of Dungeon Crawl, which looks like this [http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/mygodthebees.jpg], and decided you Shamus are my leader and prophet. Speak, and I shall obey.

 

[Kyogissun]

...I like playing Cafe World and Farmville and now Treasure Isle...

Am I a horrible person for it? I just like harmless little flash games. They're something to do in addition to my web browsing.

 

[Eldarion]

...I like playing Cafe World and Farmville and now Treasure Isle...

Am I a horrible person for it? I just like harmless little flash games. They're something to do in addition to my web browsing.

Nothing wrong with that, something to do in addition to web browsing is fine.

But they aren't games. They are apps. There is a difference.

 

[AncientYoungSon]

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.

QFT!

Granted, you can hide the crap, but every time they make a new application, you have to hide that, too. Besides, it doesn't change the fact that it's immensely irritating.

Zynga doesn't even make "games". They make social-networking applications with a game interface, no different than that godforsaken "Find out what ______ said about you by signing up!" application that spams your FB page.

And no, this isn't "getting people into gaming" any more than the Wii did. 70 million Wiis sold and gamer games still don't sell worth anything on the console? Yeah, people are going to stop playing Farmville one day and decide they want to try out HL2. Sure.

 

[William Brayton]

Fantastic....yes the new gamer that will trivialize what saved me from going crazy...thanks Zynga. You've made my life worthless...and so has everyone new gamer who can't figure out they can ask a friend who is a gamer.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

This is why I'm glad I started gaming at a very young age... I mean, when I was in kindergarten I was playing Sesame Street and Pajama Sam point and click adventure games, then I got a GameCube and Pikmin, then I got Call of Duty, then I got Resident Evil 4. I basically worked my way up from the very bottom, so advancing at a slow pace like that came naturally to me. Now I can pick up nearly any game and play it without even glancing at the manual.

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!

I have never played another Facebook game since. I just don't find that kind of thing fun


That will not stop it being popular though

Similar to Animal Crossing, I see. It makes you play every single day, and that's what gets you. Then it becomes routine.

Ya, my mom plays it. The time that it takes for certain crops to grow can be between 2 hours up to 4 days. The people just have to pick which crop grow times fit their schedules. The crops whither and die if you leave them sit the same amount of time it took them to grow; then you get no coins from them.

The game basically runs like this, click, click, harvest, get coins(do that a few times then buy stuff to decorate farm) then repeat. It doesn't take long to earn the coins to buy everything in the market(that can be bought with coins), after that, if the players want anything new on their farm, they have to spend real money to get farm cash. With farm cash you can buy the exclusive items that can only be bought with farm cash. It is ridiculously expensive. For example, if you want to get an exclusive new animal that Zynga just made for farmville, depending on how interesting the animal is, it can cost close to if not 5 dollars for just one. And from watching my mom play, I have seen other people's farms and some of them have 10 of the exclusive 5 dollar animal. That is 50 dollars that that person spent on 10 duplicate graphics that every day or so you get fake coins from. With 50 dollars, a person can buy a new console game, or two 20 dollar console games that are new but lower in price because they are a few years old , then with the money leftover they can go to Wendy's or some other fast food place and get lunch.
It is much more reasonable to have some new games and a full stomach than 10 worthless graphics of a deer or whatever non-farm creature that they are wanting people buy for their farm.

 

[tadersntots]

I'm sorry, but the only reason Zynga is even a known name is Facebook. Without Facebook we wouldn't be talking about them right now. Without Facebook they would have 0 votes in March Mayhem. This isn't a case of passionate gamers rising up to vote for their game. This is the case of Zynga spamming all of Facebook for votes. This is NOT "the rise of a new gamer". This is a the rise of people who already spend hours looking at pictures on Facebook who decide to spend some time clicking stuff on a Facebook application. Zynga games are games the same way Reality TV is real.

I'm all for the Wii and companies like PopCap bringing the rise of GOOD casual gaming and introducing games to non gamers, but the last thing we need is to hold up a company to praise who steals peoples ideas, scams their own customers, and their only claim to success is being lucky and riding on the backs of the latest "it" social networking site.

Couldn't agree more. Even their own players are boycotting them.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=100321473343349

We are all sick of the spam and buggy games just preying off those who think they must have that extra "whatever" for so many reward points that must be purchased by credit card. Every game Zynga made was a knock off of another's hard work. Not one came from an original idea.

tatertot