
Zynga: forget games, let’s just do viruses - VSerge
http://flirtatiouslabs.com/post/31401127751/zynga-game-virus-farmville-2
======
kanamekun
The author nails it in their last bullet point: "Facebook, STEP UP and stop
your big partners from hurting your product, users and whole ecosystem once in
a while!"

If Facebook doesn't police a major partner from abusing its API like this,
they are effectively condoing this behavior and inviting their other app
partners to do the same.

I can't believe that Facebook has become another MySpace. Its product/market
fit was so strong just a few years ago that they seemed unbeatable: a true
anti-MySpace. Since then, it seems like in their pursuit for growth they've
basically completely gutted their product/market fit and worked to destroy the
trust they'd built up with their users.

~~~
brador
How big a piece would it take from Facebooks user count if Zynga dropped
Facebook entirely and started it's own social network with Zynga game
exclusivity?

~~~
kevingadd
Zynga moving away wouldn't make users stop using Facebook. It might drop usage
numbers or hurt other metrics, but nobody's going to quit Facebook just to
play Farmville 2. The vast majority of users on Facebook are there because
it's Facebook, and their friends have accounts, etc.

~~~
eli
I think the better question is how many people join Facebook each month
_because_ it has Farmville (and then perhaps also connect to friends and
family). I'm sure that's a minority, but it's not zero.

~~~
AJ007
An even better question is how many people lose interest in checking Facebook
every day because their feed is filled with baloney.

Its a lot like email. The email address that only my friends have, I watch all
day. The email address every asshole I've done business with in the past 5
years has I check about once a week. (Everyone important has my phone number.)

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
If your feed is filled with baloney, and you let it stay that way, then it's
partially your fault as well. Facebook has so many ways to control what shows
up in your feed, and you should really take advantage of them.

Don't like updates from a specific game or app? You can turn off all updates
from that source.

Don't like updates from your uncle grandpa joe but can't deal with the social
fallout of unfriending him? You can change your subscription to only see
"important updates", or you can unsubscribe from a user altogether.

Friended or subscribing to someone cool and don't see enough of their updates
by default? You can specifically subscribe to see _all_ of their posts rather
than just the ones Facebook thinks you'll like.

There's even more options than that available to you, just click on a post and
choose Hide, and you'll get multiple options for what you can do with that.
Use it liberally if your friends list is full of people who post things you
don't want to see. The power is in your hands.

~~~
graeme
Those options aren't obvious, and they change. The "show only important
updated" option disappeared from my feed recently.

~~~
graeme
For anyone looking, I found where it went. You can hide a post, then it will
give you subscription options.

------
mindstab
You know what? Facebook gives users the tools to block this stuff. You can
block all content from an app. Now I know zynga makes a few apps, but not that
many Any time some new one pops up in my feed I block it. I haven't had a
problem with this junk in my feed for a very long time. I can barely believe
its bugging smart technical people.

~~~
tomkit
I have the same work flow.

In addition, these "OK/Yes", "OK/(auto enabled toggle)", "YES-only" dialogs
are not unique to Zynga and not unique to Farmville 2; it's been around for a
while. I suppose the author of the blog was only recently compelled to try out
the game?

~~~
j_s
> I suppose the author of the blog was only recently compelled to try out the
> game?

The post is on the blog of a social gaming company; their key take-away seems
to be:

    
    
       Developers beware the backlash with yet less discovery for quality games

------
danielweber
So we are exactly where we were 6 years ago, with "I bet somebody got a really
nice bonus for that feature."[1]

Those checkboxes look exactly like what they came through after testing dozens
or hundreds of different combinations, optimizing for acceptance rather than
honesty.

[1][http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/11/01/92244...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/11/01/922449.aspx)

------
kevingadd
I've seen those 'OK'/'Yes' button-only modals in a few social games now and
they're goddamn disgusting. It will probably catch on since I have no doubt
that it's effective, but it's the worst kind of manipulation and a great way
to ensure that customers never trust you.

~~~
Travis
It's rather hyperbolic to say it's "the worst kind of manipulation", and that
it will ensure "customers never trust you." (Disclaimer: I'm not on
facebook/zynga in part because of these concerns...)

I also guess that tactics like these will erode user trust over time.

But most users are neither savvy nor concerned with things like this, in my
experience. They may be annoyed with it, but the majority of people simply
don't apply any meta-analysis to the sites they use, as we so often do here on
HN.

I'd guess that they use these techniques because _they are successful_. So
that's an interesting dilemma -- how can a (public) company decide which
ethical path to take? If they don't use these techniques, they are doing their
bottom line a disservice. If they do use them, they are crossing into a grey
area of ethics.

What are companies (startups, especially) supposed to decide, between a
slightly grey area success or an ethical failure?

PS - I know that's a bit of a false dichotomy, but making it a black-and-white
issue simplifies it for discussion.

~~~
saraid216
This is roughly why I said it would be illegal someday. The price mechanism is
really bad at giving acceptable answers to ethics. Whenever all the current
enterprises agree to be ethical, there inevitably comes some whippersnapper
who has no such qualms and undercuts them all. And while they can form a
cartel to fight back, the only real recourse is stepping outside the market
system for a final arbitrator: the law.

~~~
Travis
Sorry for the delay in responding. I really like what you said up here and
upvoted you for it.

In the hope you see this, I have another question for you: in the startup
world, what recourse is there against unethical competition? Some companies
like Uber (esp. in Boston, NYC), are able to fight the good fight. Others,
like Padmapper, are trying to do so.

But for the majority of companies, legal recourse (especially looking for
legislative redress rather than establishing case law) is not an option. What
should an ethical startup do when faced with acting unethically (yet similar
to established competiton) or not existing?

Again, thank you for putting the price->ethics perspective so elegantly.

~~~
saraid216
I wish I had an answer to that.

I think the best weapon you have is mudslinging. Start a blog and explain how
and why this works and why it's wrong. Try to get it read by the unethical
practitioner's customers: they're your targets. Hopefully, you can have an
effect and force-feed ethics into the price mechanism... but honestly, I don't
think you'll get very far or see much of an ROI.

That's my best guess, and I'm not terribly happy with it.

------
VSerge
Hey guys, thanks for the comments, this wasn't that thought out, more of a
venting moment against this kind of behavior by these that are supposedly in
leadership position.

Its compounded by the fact that I'm trying to launch a game called
Flirtatious, that is attempting to make meeting someone online fun, as non-
creepy and not too fake either (check it out here apps.facebook.com/flirtati -
feedback will be read and thought through).

Launching a game as an indie dev is difficult to start with, and even more so
when the ecosystem is being kicked in the face by the big boys on a regular
basis.

~~~
gizzlon
Off topic, but the "PLAY FLIRTATIOUS ON FACEBOOK" link (upper right corner) is
dead.

------
talmand
I wouldn't say that Zynga is using virus tactics, I would say that viruses
have been using marketing tactics that everyone knows works for short term
gain.

But there's plenty of blame to go around for this stuff being out there. Zynga
for doing it, Facebook for allowing it, and the user for not reading about
what they're clicking.

~~~
Draiken
I'd say you can't blame the user for not seeing a hidden checkbox in the
corner.

Same thing with advertises and their little asterisks in the bottom with
unreadable letters. It's just a shame that this is pretty much the only
business model that you see today in "social" games.

Never understood what is social about sharing a predefined message that you
have harvested a crop.

~~~
saraid216
> Never understood what is social about sharing a predefined message that you
> have harvested a crop.

Nothing. This is a misunderstanding of the history of the term. A "social
game" is a game built on top of a social network site (authoritatively defined
here: <http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html> ) that makes
actual usage of the SNS mechanisms. Farmville was the genre-definer (social
games fitting the definition pre-Zynga were not categorized as such), so it's
not surprising that the term is basically bullshit.

Wikipedia has an article that differs a bit from my explanation here:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_game>

------
ameyamk
Whats the best way? Avoid creating spam? or let there be spam, but build
algorithms to detect the spam. FB seems to be choosing latter.

It seems like apps like these are basically destroying "open graph" fabric
that FB wants to put in place. Its a great concept in general, but I do not
see any legitimate use of "auto publishing" functionality for any app. If
there is, potential abuse far bigger than any gain from the legitimate use.
Although this puts Open graph with its actions and auto sharing etc in
jeopardy.

~~~
darkarmani
This is a very good reason for a second facebook account for playing games.

------
jpdoctor
I haven't found a compelling reason to enable _any_ app in facebook, and I
suspect I'm not alone.

~~~
jff
Watching a massive stream of app notifications fill up my Facebook account
until I finally got the last of them blocked convinced me that I'd never want
to enable any app.

------
anxman
This title is misleading. Opt-out behavior is common all across the Internet
and by itself doesn't make Farmville2 suddenly into a virus.

Sure, the flow isn't as transparent as it could be, but the title is clearly
linkbait by piling on Zynga.

There are tons of applications on Facebook that post stories without the
user's realizing, and calling all of them viruses too would meet the metrics
of the author but would be inaccurate.

------
propercoil
i hate it when people exaggerate - a virus? really? i think people are
influenced by government exaggeration. maybe next time someone will classify
this as "terrorism".

~~~
rwallace
A virus is a piece of information that exploits a security vulnerability in an
existing complex system, tricking the system into propagating the virus to its
own detriment. Remember the word originally only applied where the target was
a living cell. The usage where the target is a digital computer might have
been considered a metaphor, but the deep structural similarity outweighs the
difference in substrate, sufficiently to merit considering the new usage a
valid extension.

Zynga 'games' are viruses that exploit security vulnerabilities in the human
mind. The extension of usage is just as defensible as the original extension
to digital computers.

~~~
propercoil
terrorism is a "systematic use of violence and intimidation to achieve some
goal" (dictionary.com). Zynga 'games' are acts of terrorism that attack the
human mind to achieve their goals.

What a bunch of fluff

------
ghempton
Being as Zynga is very metrics driven, it's funny to think about this in terms
of A/B testing: trying variations on design which increase sharing. The
optimum will be with when there is no opt-out at all.

~~~
ceejayoz
> The optimum will be with when there is no opt-out at all.

Not necessarily. You may lose someone immediately who would've eventually
given in and opted-in after the 50th dialog.

------
stephengillie
Interesting position, thinking of Zynga as a commercial business virus.

------
momma-joe
isn't profit a motive anymore in this form? this is just a method to make
profit, well thought out and executed. Good word play.

~~~
sp332
Making profit should be about convincing the user of the value of the product,
so that they willingly give you stuff. It shouldn't be about tricking users
into giving you something.

------
Pongo_the_Great
This struck me as an interesting take, due to your analogy: (some) viruses[1]
can be inoculated against. Looking at this through a 'real world' lens, rather
than a mimetic one, suggests something stronger.

Your argument is that is, Facebook has an interest in providing inoculation
against viruses to their users, while the viruses themselves (Zynga) have a
vested interest in removing possible inoculating effects within their
ecosystem. i.e. Facebook should provide inoculation against Zynga. Now, your
argument revolves around the "active/positive" end of this, where you make an
appeal to Facebook to reduce the most egregious examples of this[2], as it
will increase user pleasure, enhance the ecosystem and provide you with
healthy users. To be fair, this approach has produced some movement from
Facebook on the more obvious ones (such as the early phone ads).

This is all well and good ~ however, you're ignoring the "negative/passive"
way in which this is done.

Zynga actively creates an ecosystem that ensures that the most successful
viruses (i.e. <b>your social game</b>) have to conform to the most successful
strategies, precisely because it is so metric / psychologically driven. If you
want to compete against a dominant virus, aping the same Skinner-driven models
([http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/11/28/1931246/more-on-
why-...](http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/11/28/1931246/more-on-why-it-
stinks-to-work-at-zynga)) makes sense, both in market terms and ecological
terms.

But you're aiming at the wrong target. Facebook isn't purely a host, it's also
a virus. In fact, it benefits from a relationship where it isn't the "worst"
virus, as this makes it more attractive to users (i.e. changing security /
functionality / sharing of user data being the more obvious examples), while
the ecological impact Zynga provides allows it to act more aggressively as a
virus (i.e. your user base becomes used to virus tactics). The relationship is
mutalistic, as the market well knows.

Your real target needs to be inoculating the user, so that they either
recognise the strategies of the viruses and produce anti-bodies against them
(the "Steam model", where your user will only react favourably to positive
behaviour by a virus, because they react violently against negative behaviour,
forging a symbiotic relationship[3]) <i>or</i> by producing a product that is
more suited to your environment. i.e. is better at virus intrusion than Zynga,
either in camouflage ("we're-nice-but-secretly-screwing-you") or by creating
antibodies against other viruses ("I get such an empathetic bond with this
virus, I'm not sure why, it just makes me feel good"). (The distinction is
purely in the awareness / active interest of the user).

Wall of text: right gripe, wrong target. Facebook and Zynga both know their
core market, and the real question is: why don't most users have such
antibodies against viruses automatically?

Answer: probably due to culture & this being the first true generation of
users experiencing such viruses. Of course, without being too cruel, there's
some that will never produce antibodies, as we all know.
<http://www.bogost.com/blog/cow_clicker_1.shtml>

[1] Never virii, never. [2]Which, as we all know, <b>was/is</b> Zynga,
especially in the more outspoken criticisms at certain
Cons.(<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091108/1122426850.shtml> \- please
note, I might well be making a joke from where I'm getting my sources from),
[3] In a purely user<>host example here, there's problems with Steam just as
any other DRM / software provider [4] This example broke down in the first
instance by not treating Zynga as a producer of viruses, and multiple other
problems due to me typing quickly and not wanting to turn this into ecology
101. I hope that it was at least a little bit interesting / useful.

~~~
Pongo_the_Great
Note: I'm aware that this analogy is metaphorically and intellectually broken.

If I had time / inclination, we'd re-work the OP's example into Facebook and
Steam etc being protozoa, Zynga would be some bacteria living inside Facebook
with our users as the host and introduce all kinds of biology comparisons.
Zynga-as-Virus as an analogy wouldn't be too useful as it's not a case of
simple self-replication in attacks / predation on the host; it's also
camouflaging itself as other fauna to fool the hosts' current anti-body set,
as EA, a much larger protozoa, is trying to eat it for as competition. There's
also the fact Zynga would have to live inside Facebook in a mutalistic
relationship, while they both feed off each others' intakes from the host.

Would be fun, modelling it all.

Now I urn for the Spore-that-never-was, damn, but we wouldn't want to scare
the hosts when they realised the real lions, tigers & bears out there, I
suppose.

------
cpeterso
Why does Facebook insist on spelling OK as "Okay"? Do _any_ other websites or
applications use "Okay"? OK is a jocular abbreviation for "oll korrect", not a
word.

~~~
AgentConundrum
Wikipedia, for one. I went looking to confirm what you said, and found that
the canonical page for the word/abbreviation on Wikipedia was 'Okay'[1] with a
redirect to that page when you ask for 'O.K.'.

The page itself says there is no consensus as to the origin of the word, and
links to another page[2] with a list of possible origins. 'Oll Korrect' seems
like it's the definition with widest acceptance, but it's not the only
contender.

I've seen 'Okay' used on other websites, though none come immediately to mind,
and have never given a second thought to Facebook's spelling of the word.

Even if 'oll korrect' was the origin of the word, 'okay' is still perfectly
acceptable to me. It would hardly be the first English word to make such a
transition.

