Zynga CEO Admits to Being a Scammer

[Jirlond]

The guy didnt have to build the games, the people didn't have to play them. They all volunteered their information in exchange for playing the games.

The aim is to make profit. There isn't really any other way to do that on facebook aside from data collecting and getting people to sign up for other services.

 

[Ajna]

I support that "any means necessary" attitude. Why? Because too many people are too afraid to do anything.

I agree. Anyone else read Jennifer Government and think "That sounds good by me"?

 

[Zac_Dai]

The best way to make money is from stupid people.

But really there is a real lack of consumer protection in the digital world.

 

[LeonLethality]

I may sound cold but people falling for those scams get what they deserve a lot of them were very obvious, though on that scale he should also have more than a slap on the wrists

Wouldn't you trust a game that Facebook endorses? I mean, you trust Facebook with personal pictures and friends and possibly personal information. It doesn't seem too far a stretch that one would expect Facebook to not allow scammers to profit from their website.

But I guess you'd be wroooooooooooooooooong.

I don't trust facebook at all

 

[Monshroud]

This story is really humorous to me especially when another person was swearing how what they were doing was not scamming folk. See: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/95894-Blogger-Says-Farmville-Ads-are-Scams

Also, the reason they are not being sued, is because they didn't exactly do anything illegal. People didn't read the fine print about what was going to happen when they downloaded or installed or signed up for whatever the offer was. Questionable, yes... Ethical, not in my opinion, illegal.... not that I can see..

 

[lvl9000_woot]

Well, that is definitly a dirty marketing campaign right there. Granted he succeded, but whatever happened to your parents saying "Hard Work and Dedication" are the keys to success.

Yup. I mean really...who plays fair anymore? NOBODY. That's who.

Besides, since when was marketing anything but sneaky, underhanded, etc, etc. hmmm?

 

[MajoraPersona]

People fell for those?

 

[Comma-Kazie]

A CEO who only has his best interests at heart. Come on, why is this so shocking?

 

[Jimmyjames]

After hearing this bullshit, I want to kick the shit out of the guy.

 

[samsonguy920]

Wow, felt like we were back in the Hall of Doom, with Luthor bragging about his new scheme to scam people of money. This is true evil folks, and scamming anyone has no excuse.

 

[paragon1]

Hah! I knew Farmville was evil! Vindication at last!

 

[SimuLord]

Proof that Barnum's Maxim is alive and well and a great profit driver.

I mean, it's Facebook, fercryinoutloud. I can't blame Pincus and the Brain for this one.

 

[bushwhacker2k]

Why didn't he get sued for this?

I'm waiting with my fingers crossed.

Yeah, I've played both Farmville and Mafia Wars and never spent a penny on it. I take pride in this.

 

[AgDr_ODST]

I play Mafia Wars and Vampire Wars along with countless other apps on facebook(most of which have offers that reward you with more point, coins, tokens ect) and I admit sometimes Im in a situation where i want more favor points(or what ever they're called) but Im never so desperate for said points that I try to complete the "offers" that are obviously scams.

 

[BonsaiK]

This guy is scum. He should not be allowed to walk around freely, he should be locked up. To assholes like him, other people's hard-earned money is just "revenues".

Of course, some people seem to have this weird "if other people are stupid I should be allowed to committ crimes against them" attitude, so he gets away with it and some people even admire him for it. The fact is though, that we were all stupid once because life is a learning process, and learning by mistakes is how people learn. It shouldn't make profiting off mistakes legal though.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

Yes, X Factor sucks too and gets worster with every iteration and is filled with annoying people, that's TV nowadays. Long live the internet.

Hey, not all TV is like that. As long as Ninja Warrior exists, there will always be hope.

 

[Therumancer]

Well, that is definitly a dirty marketing campaign right there. Granted he succeded, but whatever happened to your parents saying "Hard Work and Dedication" are the keys to success.

Well, I'm not entirely sure what he did didn't involve hard work to be honest. Or at least hard work within the sphere he was operating in. I mean he had to get games that people were interested enough in to want the additional benefits for, then he had to get the scammers on board and to work with his infrastructure. While he says a lot of his investers were friends of his, he still had to work all of those deals, and keep them on board. Not to mention watching his back to make sure he kept all the control he mentioned (stocks, etc...).

I'm not going to knock him for lack of effort. Though I suppose I do agree with you in spirit. While it's always been true that the best way to get ahead is to have an angle, I think our society is becoming stratified enough where it's rapidly becoming the ONLY way to get ahead.

What gets me though is that they guy was nailed as a scammer and nothing much is going to happen to him as a result of being caught, to the point where he can sit there with a mic and go on and on about how cool he is for being able to make a bundle messing with people.

The part that gets me is that there needs to be some responsibility in all of this. Him getting away more or less clean just encourages people to do the same thing. To some extent I can respect the risk he took, but it's the whole old saying "don't stick it out unless your willing to lose it". The more people are able to avoid having to face repercussions for what they've done, the worse things are going to get.

Basically if there is no legal way to nail this guy right now, that's a good sign that someone needs to sit down and come up with laws to nail people in situations like this and have them stick.