Zynga Money Machine Leaves EA Behind

[Michael O'Hair]

Like it or not, kids, casual, social gaming is where it's at, and in case there was any doubt, here are some numbers that'll make your hair curl: According to FrontierVille [http://www.sharespost.com/companies/zynga] is now worth an estimated $5.51 billion, putting it well ahead of EA's $5.16 billion valuation on the Nasdaq.

Companies go where the money is, but great games aren't coming from casual social games. When social games can create experiences like classic PC and console games, I'll believe the hype.

Until then, I think I'll keep playing great games, rather than the -ville flavor of the month.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Well they are a legitimate game company, as legit as valve or bioware, we just need to remove the ability to vote without having been here for a few months and we need to remove the ability to vote from Facebook.

I don't think legitimate game companies give out their consumers information to spammers and scammers do they? Also have you even played any of their so called games. I have played a few of them. They are little more than simple Flash Applets with little to no actual playing. What you do to win or improve at them is log onto the site spam friend invites to people to grow Mafia or neighbours or etc. After that is done you then send all of these people free gifts so that they do the same in return. Then you click on things until your stamina or energy bars go down/crops harvested then wait 24.

While I am well aware that people enjoy this and that is fair enough it is not fair to put a company like that against another company that can spend anywhere bewtween 1 year and 10+ years making a game.

Also on the limitations that will never ever happen as it completely defeats the purpose of March Madness which is try net as many new members as possible and get as much ad revenue from increased website traffic. So I don't think either of those will ever come into effect.

 

[tcurt]

Which just goes to show the best way to get rich is to have no ethics, produce the cheapest product you can without regard to quality, and market heavily, preferably using other people's resources.

Kinda Walmart-y like that. Sigh.

 

[Nifty]

Got to hand it to Zynga, even if their games are shit, they've got something that most proper developers don't have: a good business model.

 

[Waif]

Zynga is one of the fastest growing social game companies. Though in their sector of course, casual gaming, bigger than hard core gaming, for a variety of reasons. It would be interesting to see where Zynga will be a few years from now. Though it seems that a few people will always hang the old issues of the past over Zynga's head, no matter what their accomplishments are today.

 

[MNRA]

My face. My palm. They mix.

 

[z3rostr1fe]

My face. My palm. They mix.

Into a slushie???

OT: We'll see about that!

 

[Bob_Bobbington]

I just wish casual, social games were awesome. Like, can't there be a warhammer 40k casual social game?

No there can't be. That notion is heresy and heresy is punishable by death. Please report to your local Commissar for execution.

This of course is a joke.

OT: Well, I know what I have to do to get rich quick in life. Now I'm off to make crap games.

 

[AvsJoe]

Well, I don't know if this'll make things better or worse but I'm going to admit right now that I play two of Playfish's Facebook games on a daily basis. Playfish is owned by EA.

 

[ThisWasAWaste]

:'(

 

[garfoldsomeoneelse]

At least Zynga supports their multiplayer games.