
  Zynga Takes Steps To Remove Scams From Games  - transburgh
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/02/zynga-takes-steps-to-remove-scams-from-games/
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ErrantX
Im not sure which is best: the fact this is Arrington back to his original
best again and doing good journalism/editorial.

Or that Zygna have sat up and taken notice to fix this.

Score 2 I think!

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fnid
Both. Arrington gets a bad rap, but I think he's an all right guy with a good
heart and the best intentions.

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spencerfry
I'll second that. I think TechCrunch just grew too quickly and he wasn't
prepared for it. It now seems like he's getting things more under control
starting around the time they got their new office.

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fnid
I saw a video with him in it and someone asked about advertising on TechCrunch
and he said flat out, "I don't recommend it, your money is better spent
elsewhere."

I thought that was nice.

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stingraycharles
Good PR lesson: even if you're a fucked up company and someone calls you out
on it, if you admit the problem and take proper steps quickly people will
likely forgive you and perhaps even like you for it.

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mrshoe
Not to detract from the overall positive response by Mark, but if you make
over $100MM/year partially by scamming young people (even if it's indirectly),
giving less than one half of one percent of that to charity doesn't make it
OK.

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Shana
Shoddy Journalism. And I'm tired of it. Really Shoddy Journalism.

Zynga was actively recruiting on top tier campuses for product managers before
this story came out. The job is still on their website. The Job is on their
website, but like any company, they want to have a good applicant pool.

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kyro
I really don't understand how some of these scams can be even considered
legal. And it's everywhere. I see the Jamster and other ringtone commercials
all the time, and always wonder about how many hundreds of thousands of kids
they fool into subscribing to a monthly $5 plan when all they wanted to do was
get Lil' Wayne's new music ring tone. I know it's all in the fine print, but
there have got to be laws outlining what constitutes fine print transparent
and deceptive. How can any child possibly pay attention to the small text at
the bottom of their tv when they're being bombarded with explosions of colors
and sounds elsewhere on the screen?

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ajju
Does anyone know anyone who works at Zynga? What is your impression of them?

A friend has just begun the interview process with them and would like to find
out about the culture and the direction of the company. Neither he nor I have
any other reliable source of information.

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vaksel
Arrington seems dissapointed that he doesn't get to milk this for the next 3
months.

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SwellJoe
The good news (I guess) is that evil keeps on coming back. As Frind pointed
out in his comment on the earlier stories, this has been going on for _years_
, and Zynga are just one of the more recent more obvious purveyors of this
brand of nastiness. For every one that gets called out, there will be ten more
"entrepreneurs" that read the article and think, "Hey, that's a great idea!"

Unfortunately, sometimes companies get away with doing this (or some other
equally nasty tactics) in the early days, and then convert to more legitimate
models once they've got some cash in the bank, but before it really has a
chance to bite them.

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brandnewlow
Can these guys actually make real money without these scams? I've not played
their games, so this is an honest question.

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gehant
A large portion of revenues for _social_ games/worlds (Zynga, Playdom, Second
Life, IMVU, etc) are gotten from users _so_ passionate about the game they pay
directly for credits - that is as clean as it gets and a solid revenue stream
even if you cut out the bottom-feeder lead gen offers...

