Zynga CEO Admits to Being a Scammer

[Vierran]

Just another reason i don't have a facebook account.

 

[Kramerica]

yay mafiawars founder

 

[TIMESWORDSMAN]

PINKY IS EEEEEVVVVIIIILLLL!!!

 

[AshleyAnne]

Check out this video from newsy.com about the farmville scam http://www.newsy.com/videos/facebook_application_farmville_faces_scam

 

[JWAN]

A company that makes multiplayer facebook games admits to being a SCAMMER?

That's like if a lobster admitted that it has pincers, or if a shoe admitted that it was a shoe.

lol
exactley

how about a grizzly bear saying it has a furry ass

 

[A random person]

I wonder how my Farmville-addicted friends would react to this.

 

[BonsaiK]

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.

Lots of things take "hard work". Nigerian email scams take "hard work". Organised crime takes "hard work". Walling in an entire suburb and then going to every house and killing all the inhabitants one by one is "hard work". Sourcing the material for, then building and planting an IED is "hard work". Just because something is a lot of effort doesn't make it automatically something to be admired.

Listen to that fuckhead bleating on in the video about "I control my own company now". If I saw him in the street I wouldn't even talk to him, I'd just walk up, smack him in the mouth and let him figure out on his own what it was all about later. Fortunately for him he's got such an ugly, boring face I'm not likely to remember his appearance beyond the next five minutes so the chances of that happening are nil. I guess I'll just have to settle for linking everyone I know to this article instead.

 

[Hallow'sEve]

This guy's my hero.
On a side note, it's probably one of those legal scams, and not covered by the law because the user signed a contract that they should've read.
I think scamming is one of my favorite crimes, it's like a puzzle, you have to figure out how to dope the person and I don't feel bad, because they were stupid enough to fall for it. I should try it someday...

 

[blipblop]

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

If you only were my friend and lived here in sweden I would finaly have someone to start up a business whit...

OT: mr Pincus did the rigt thing. its a ***** to get investors if you havent had a sucsesful buisiness before and I dont think the bank will lend you any money if your idea is a facebook game.

 

[Lusulpher]

I always suspected there was something not quite right about those Facebook games. And I seem to be one of the only people I know that doesn't play any of them. Ha.

\o *High five* But I do feel bad for the 3 or so people I got unwittingly hooked.(Damn mail this to 10 friends access spam, which turned me off of playing it. HAHAHA)

Anyway, in a Machiavellian way, he's still right. he's competing in a Capitalist economu...so Greed is good. Poor people are lazy /and/o stupid. He deserves evry dime.

I didn't play because my Nigerian scam sense tingled. I'm not stupid enough to pay RL money for virtual goods.

Anyone want to buy mail order bride? Very obedient. Low mileage. She love you longtime. Forward this to ten friends, or you go flacid for month.

]-

 

[Kenjitsuka]

Wow, what an arse!
I hope he gets put in jail or, probably worse for a greedy guy like him; a huuuuge fine

 

[Leroy Frederick]

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.

True, there is the odd thing worth watching on TV, but less and less so with each passing year it seems

 

[deleted_scifidownbeat]

DELETED

 

[DayDark]

I never trust something like this, but I generally despise people who misuse peoples trust, since it breeds a paranoid and distrustful mindset in the population.

People aren't stupid because they put trust in you. You're just a bastard for abusing them.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Haven't played Farmville. Is it like Harvest Moon?

 

[orangeapples]

lol, I cheated the system.

I used my school computers to fill out a survey for some bonus points in Mafia Wars. I made an e-mail address which I never check, used it when I filled out a survey, put a fake name, and used the school's address. I got my points, and my computer was safe. The school has a very interesting system for their computers. It's as if they re-format every night.

I knew it was a scam when I first looked at it, which is why I didn't use my own computer for it.

I got my free points AND the scammers got an address and a phone number.

I didn't even use the school's phone number, I used a rejection number.

I can admit that I as an addict. I would play until I had to go to school. I was a level 150something, I had about 300 people on my MySpace just for Mafia Wars adds. I had it bad. One day I just decided that I cannot keep doing this to myself anymore because it was taking away from my time to play REAL video games. I went into my settings, removed Mafia Wars, deleted my Mafia Wars adds, and since then have only loaded it up once, and that was to see if I was truly over my problem. I won. I looked at that screen and said, "I don't have to play you anymore. You will not take my time."

 

[theultimateend]

Haven't played Farmville. Is it like Harvest Moon?

No.

Country Story by Playfish is almost a carbon copy though.

 

[GrinningManiac]

I'm gonna turn the "I haven't got any social networking profiles" smugness-o-metre up another notch.

*Beams irritatingly*

 

[Low Key]

I saw all of those scams before when the Wii, 360 and PS3 came out. They all said if you fill out a survey and tell 10 people, your console would arrive in the mail within a couple of weeks. Obviously that wasn't happening for people, so I put two and two together and did the apparent smart thing. It sucks so many people fall for that crap. I can't imagine how many kids infected their parents computers. I suppose since I have my own computer essential to my computer science schooling, I am far more catious than I normally would be.

 

[lodo_bear]

lol, I cheated the system.

I used my school computers to fill out a survey for some bonus points in Mafia Wars. I made an e-mail address which I never check, used it when I filled out a survey, put a fake name, and used the school's address. I got my points, and my computer was safe. The school has a very interesting system for their computers. It's as if they re-format every night.

I knew it was a scam when I first looked at it, which is why I didn't use my own computer for it.

I got my free points AND the scammers got an address and a phone number.

I didn't even use the school's phone number, I used a rejection number.

I can admit that I as an addict. I would play until I had to go to school. I was a level 150something, I had about 300 people on my MySpace just for Mafia Wars adds. I had it bad. One day I just decided that I cannot keep doing this to myself anymore because it was taking away from my time to play REAL video games. I went into my settings, removed Mafia Wars, deleted my Mafia Wars adds, and since then have only loaded it up once, and that was to see if I was truly over my problem. I won. I looked at that screen and said, "I don't have to play you anymore. You will not take my time."

You, sir, are my hero. One day I hope to scam scammers and break addictions as thoroughly as you do.