

Zynga's Chief Operating Officer Quits After Demotion - codegeek
http://www.cnbc.com/id/48578603

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rm999
EA, his former employer, is suing Zynga for copying their games and
specifically named him in the suit. Surprised the article doesn't mention
this.

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trevor99
It's clear from Pincus's past actions that Zynga doesn't play by the rules
everyone else does

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codegeek
"The company blamed changes to Facebook's algorithm"

This is what caught my eye. yes Zynga is primarily based on fb but aren't they
supposed to have their own back since they have gone public with multi-million
dollar IPO ?

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thirsteh
Welcome to the walled gardens in the cloud.

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kiba
YES! Zynga shall burns tonight!

On a serious note, I am glad that our entertainment future won't be afflicted
with "The Curse of the Cow Clicker" and we will just get back to making
genuine games.

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Androsynth
The zyngafication of games has already begun and is happening regardless of
what happens to Zynga. Micropayments and free to play games are moving from
the fringe to the default and this is terrible for gaming. It's terrible
because it forces companies to become zyngafied. They rely solely on numbers;
they shove their their gimmicks down your throat. Gaming is slowly moving from
'nerds and kids having fun' to 'pigeons in a box having their wallets picked'.

Ultimately, hating on Zynga is pointless, because that mindset has infected
EA, SOE, THQ and even the 'good' developers like valve[1] and blizzard.

In short, game developers have gone from small groups of nerds to large
corporations run with a corporation-like efficiency. The product managers that
so brutally follow analytics in the SF web dev scene are also starting to
infiltrate gaming.

[1] In team fortress 2, crates drop which require you to purchase a key to
open. This exact move is very common in free to play games, but as far as I
know it was developed by Zynga in Mafia Wars.

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TillE
I think it'll be a temporary thing. Look at Bethesda, for example - they
experimented with crap DLC like horse armor, but then quickly turned to solid,
fairly priced mini-expansions.

Age of Empires Online had to overhaul its pricing. Microsoft Flight crashed
and burned (har har) after trying to sell new planes and areas bit by bit.

If Zynga does fail in a serious way, it should hasten the demise of the
"social gaming" business model.

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Androsynth
I think there will a bigger backlash than even your examples in the near
future. It will be similar to app.net, people will realize that paying is
better than not-paying.

