How to kill a game...and other stuff :P

Many of you know that Facebook went public last week, and given how over valued the company was, it is no surprise that the stock did not do well during its first couple days on the market.  But more interesting to me, and perhaps many of you is that another company suffered a massive decline in stock value the day of Facebook's IPO:  Zynga.  Forbes has an excellent article about all this¹, and I suggest you read it (I will provide a link at the end of this blog entry).  But I do wish to quote directly the last paragraph of the Forbes article:

"As for Zynga, now that they’ve begun to shift focus toward actually original titles, maybe they’ll turn a new leaf. Maybe, as Paul Tassi writes, they’ve realized that their terrible reputation has caught up with them. If that’s the case, it’s possible that the company will continue to grow. If not, I’d be hesitant to place too many eggs in your Zynga basket, with or without the Facebook IPO shaking things up."

You know what I think?  I think Zynga will never change.  I think that their reputation will only get worse, at least within the Mafia Wars community.  At this point it will take a corporate miracle to save this game.  All Mafia Wars is now to Zynga is a dying cash cow.   They have demonstrated having little to zero interest in what we as players actually want, and they feed into the addiction of the spenders like me.  They are not going to bring trading back.  They have not made any more loot giftable.  The number of events has steadily increased, not decreased. They increase the number of marketplace promotions and crate sales, knowing that idiots like myself, who at this point can hardly help themselves/myself, will spend hundreds of dollars buying crates.  We now have this VIP Subscription, which even many of the stingier players are coughing up $24.95 a month for.   And another m***** f******* limited time property is on the way.

What used to be one of the most incredible online gaming phenomena has now become a pitiful and shameless example of corporate greed.  And it is utterly SHAMELESS.  A game that millions upon millions of people used to play now has a mere three to four hundred thousand addicts remaining² -  and they are quitting everyday by the handfuls.

A long time mafia member of mine, who often shares, and possibly exceeds,  my cynical attitude towards Zynga and Mafia Wars, recently shared with me a list of 6 easy steps to kill a game:
     1.) Spam Wars
     2.) Bloat the game and run all but [the] supercomputuer owners away
     3.) Micromanage the game playing experience
     4.) Punish players for every mistake you make
     5.) Concentrate on making money instead of fixing game problems
     ‎6.) Keep changing the goalposts

I could not have said it better myself - {ℳ} ßrµ†µ§ =Ʀ²Ƒ=

¹ Forbes article entitled "Zynga Shares Plummet As Facebook Goes Public" can be found here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/05/18/zynga-shares-plummet-as-facebook-goes-public/ 

² Mafia Wars Metrics from AppData:
http://www.appdata.com/apps/facebook/10979261223-mafia-wars

Forbes Magazine: Longtime Zynga Player Explains Why Loyalists are Leaving the Brand

Longtime Zynga Player Explains Why Loyalists are Leaving the Brand

See the full article for yourself HERE.

A Forbes Magazine contributor recently interviewed friend and fellow Mafia Wars player John Sweeney Jr.

Some excerpts:

"It’s one thing to interview CEOs. They’ll give you standard answers about how everything’s grand and they’re doing everything they possibly can to provide the absolute best experience for players and all that. . . .That’s why I thought it was a good idea to seek out actual players to see what they thought of social games giant Zynga". 

What John thinks of Zynga games,

"they’ve made it a job now not a game."

 (standing ovation from me on that point!)

"The never fix the game issues they have . . .They instead buy the players off with reward points or virtual loot items to make them go away."

(nods) Customer Service is a freaking joke, and I say this as someone who has worked in Customer Service in various capacities most of my adult life.

"Why am I spending money on a broken game . . .?"

"So as a player I would never invest in the company in its current state. Well, maybe I will buy a single share just so I can go to the shareholder meetings to demand change, but then again Pincus doesn’t care anyway, so I guess I will just buy a value meal at McDonalds and call it a day. "

Amen brotha.