Zynga Seems More Sinister Than You Might Expect

[VondeVon]

Yeah I'm pretty sure thats what they did. I mean, Farmtown was out before Farmville, right? Apparently the games are extremely similar. I don't really play their games that much but I don't think they're a very good company.

I started playing Farmtown for my mum who needed neighbours. I moved onto Farmville because it was essentially a better-looking Farmtown. My mum disagreed and stayed with Farmtown.

I have a problem with Farmville. Occasionally I give it up for several months only to get sucked back in when I see my friends have higher levels than me (curse you, competitive drive!).

The only real solution is to kill my farm entirely, but then my friends (and family) would not be happy with me, seeing as Zynga subscribe to the 'It's not fun to play with your friends, unless you have thirty of them and they're total strangers' strategy of networked gaming.

 

[Ekonk]

Well, fuck me in the ass. As if Farmville wasn't enough of a sign that Zynga was evil.

 

[Gralian]

The bad language is the only reason so many people are gushing and saying 'Oh my, how evil of Zynga!' but really, can you blame them?

The man wants to make money. You make money with a strong business model. If he can copy his competitors and do it better, then he is a good businessman. You might call Zynga and Bobby Kotick evil for not innovating, but they're rich and successful for a reason. And we need people like that. We need people who aren't gamers to make games, because otherwise our head is stuck so far up our own arse that everything would either be shite or so auteur it wouldn't meet with any success, attract any audience, or play very well. Zynga and Kotick trim the fat, as it were. They think with the mind of somebody who wants to make money and the only way you make money is by being good at what you do. If you're good at what you do, the consumer base is happy. ***** and moan all you like but the fact is they are a necessary evil.

 

[oktalist]

I don't see what's illegal about copying another game's mechanics...

Can id Software sue Bungie for copying Doom?

 

[lacktheknack]

Damn... another game maker has gone to the dark side...

They started in the dark side...

Hopefully, they will never, EVER appear in another March Madness. And if they do, hopefully they'll get destroyed in the first round (...right).

 

[Thaius]

And this company nearly won March Mayhem?

Zynga doesn't deserve any of their success.

But I know how to stop them.

Shut down every other gaming company on earth, so that they don't have ideas to steal!

Wow, taking a cue from the Halo rings, are we?

OT: That's pretty screwed up. I was pretty neutral on the issue of Zynga (I'm not a rabid hater of all things casual, nor am I a big fan of simple time-wasters like Farmville), but this kind of pushes me away from them. That's pretty terrible.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

I didn't need an article to see that, but, hey, I just really dislike Zynga and I'd support any press against them.

And before anyone quotes me and goes "Wow, you're nice" with that sarcastic voice playing in your head, I'd just like to say that I was one of the few people who took Zynga winning in March Mayhem personally (Ya, I know. I probably shouldn't but I'm competive by nature) and while looking for arugments to fight off the users who came on just to flame us, I saw quite a bit of evil stuff.

Copying games, using their own twitter accounts to vote for themselves, spamming their forums 20 times in a single round. To put it simply, they really don't give two shits for their community.

 

[Captain Booyah]

That article does sound pretty damning, but is the fact that Zynga steals ideas from other developers ever been news? Especially to people like me, who get a barrage of game requests and invites every time I log on to Facebook?

As a result, though, I am at least somewhat knowledgeable about them, and for every popular game, Zynga just makes a copycat version. I'm pretty sure that there was Country Life or Country Story or some shit before FarmVille, as well as with Pet Society (PetVille), Restaurant City (Cafe Life), those Mafia things, etc.

What's really insulting is that they don't even try to hide the fact that they have no originality. That's just the shitty cherry on top of a crappy cake.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

So the Activision/EA method of business? Ladies and Gentlemen! Meet the King of Bullshit! ALL HAIL YOUR FUCKING MAJESTY.

 

[beddo]

"I don't fucking want innovation. You're not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers."

ouch. do we really want someone that says stuff like this to be the pioneer of "casual gaming"?

It's the users of the games that decide whether to play them, there's nothing we can do if they're not breaking the law.

 

[DrScoobs]

um... havent zynga made a reputation for being ginormous cocks before this?

 

[vallorn]

Clearly the director chap in the picture has an evil face.

OT: I never have or will ever play a Zynga game. They're pointless timesinks designed to rob people of money and the will to live. Frankly, I have a WoW account for that.

WoW+facebookgames=life eating monstrosity that could concur all of gaming.

 

[vallorn]

And this company nearly won March Mayhem?

Zynga doesn't deserve any of their success.

But I know how to stop them.

Shut down every other gaming company on earth, so that they don't have ideas to steal!

Or storm Zynga HQ guns blazing hoping to destroy all the farmville servers. I'm pitching ideas here, anyone else?

nuke the site from orbit. its the only way too be sure. and then do the same to activision.

 

[vallorn]

And this company nearly won March Mayhem?

Love the fact the no one here is ever going to forget about Zynga's inclusion in March Mayhem...

i don't even know how the fuck they got into the finals anyway

by spamming all of thier games users with "VOTE FOR YOUR MASTERS" posts.

it took labels on steam and an intervention from 4chan to kill them...

 

[The Rascal King]

Wait wait wait, now we ALL hate Zanga? Let me rephrase that; all of us competent folk hate Zanga? Finally! I was wondering when some of you people would come around to realizing they're absolute shite. I'm kind of bitter about some of the criticism I've received for my criticism of it all, but hey, we're all on the same side now.

Bro fist, everyone.

 

[Roboto]

Clearly the director chap in the picture has an evil face.

OT: I never have or will ever play a Zynga game. They're pointless timesinks designed to rob people of money and the will to live. Frankly, I have a WoW account for that.

Yup.

The articles here and on other gaming related websites tend to defend the farmville trend, but we "hardcore" gamers have always been apprehensive of it.

We can sniff this kind of stuff out! An inbred sense of evil detection.

 

[vxicepickxv]

As odd as this may sound, I really admire Pincus's attitude. So what if he's not an ideal game developer? He definitely isn't in this business to make a glorious, creative contribution to video games as an art - he's in it to make money.

Is there suddenly something wrong with wanting to make tons of cash and being honest about how you're going to it?

If you violate copyrights, laws, trademarks, and the like, yes it is quite wrong. If you admit to doing it, then you're even worse off. If you get away with it, then you're part of organized crime.