

Why game developers hate the Facebook-Zynga marriage, how Google+ can benefit - tilt
http://venturebeat.com/2011/07/29/facebook-zynga-google-games/

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cageface
Is it just me or is this whole industry starting to feel increasingly sleazy?
I guess it's inevitable when so much money is on the table but I don't feel as
proud to call myself a developer as I did a few years ago.

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tilt
I think that no matter who you are and how big you are (Facebook) you have to
come out clean.

If you say that every developer has the same deal going on, no matter how much
money they pump in, you should give them the same tools. If you DO think that
who performs better should get better deals, as every business would, then
just say so.

Playing the way they played so far (giving poor support, shutting down apps,
making subtle deals, etc) do Facebook think they can really leverage
developers with the HTML5 platform when they release it?

The only reason why developers want to keep working on Facebook is for their
(official) userbase. Facebook knows that and they didn't do anything better
than showing muscles so far.

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doomlaser
I kind of hate the Zynga revenue model more than anything. It doesn't seem
like an ethical way to make money, and has absolutely nothing to do with any
of the things that spurred me to get interested in game development in the
first place.

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inkaudio
Ironic thing about this is Zynga sees their relationship with Facebook as one
of the weakness, as reported in their S1:

 _"Facebook is the primary distribution, marketing, promotion and payment
platform for our games. We generate substantially all of our revenue and
players through the Facebook platform and expect to continue to do so for the
foreseeable future, the filing explains...Any deterioration in our
relationship with Facebook would harm our business and adversely affect the
value of our Class A common stock."_

So Google+ could even benefit from working with Zynga, if they wanted to that
is.

