4 ms·

That's a good analogy. But McDonald's has a couple of huge advantages that Zynga doesn't. The first is physical space - they are omnipresent. On the internet,

by TillE 15y ago

That's a good analogy. But McDonald's has a couple of huge advantages that Zynga doesn't. The first is physical space - they are omnipresent. On the internet, everyone can be everywhere. The second is branding. People know FarmVille. Do they know Zynga? Probably not. In Zynga's market, anyone could release a great game and have a massive success with little investment. McDonald's has serious momentum; it's utterly impossible to imagine a scenario where a competitor shows up and quickly puts them out of business. Same thing applies to Facebook. Does it apply to FarmVille? Again, I'd say no. If you see this type of game as a fad, or a mere precursor to much better games that will be offered for the same price (free), Zynga's position is quite precarious.

Klonoar 15y ago
The fact that people know Farmville, but not Zynga, doesn't actually mean much. Zynga has been able to shuttle players on to new games and releases very successfully just from advertisements in their then-current swath of properties. You could play their games and probably never give two shits about the company behind it.
- hugh3 15y ago
  Yeah, but how long can they really keep that up? You can shuffle people from Sim-farm to Sim-town to Sim-restaurant to Sim-space-station to Sim-mafia to Sim-factory-that-makes-little-models-of-factories but someday they're gonna stop paying attention. Games come and go, game genres come and go on a somewhat longer but still finite timescale.
  - Klonoar 15y ago
    I'm not debating you on that, since I agree with you. I simply wanted to point out the issue with your point about people not knowing Zynga and that possibly being an issue for them (i.e, it's by and large not). Even if people knew Zynga I get the sense it wouldn't make a huge difference; their games aren't quite immersive enough to inspire the type of brand loyalty you'd see with Nintendo/Blizzard/etc.

by TillE 15y ago

Klonoar 15y ago

The fact that people know Farmville, but not Zynga, doesn't actually mean much. Zynga has been able to shuttle players on to new games and releases very successfully just from advertisements in their then-current swath of properties. You could play their games and probably never give two shits about the company behind it.

hugh3 15y ago
Yeah, but how long can they really keep that up? You can shuffle people from Sim-farm to Sim-town to Sim-restaurant to Sim-space-station to Sim-mafia to Sim-factory-that-makes-little-models-of-factories but someday they're gonna stop paying attention. Games come and go, game genres come and go on a somewhat longer but still finite timescale.
- Klonoar 15y ago
  I'm not debating you on that, since I agree with you. I simply wanted to point out the issue with your point about people not knowing Zynga and that possibly being an issue for them (i.e, it's by and large not). Even if people knew Zynga I get the sense it wouldn't make a huge difference; their games aren't quite immersive enough to inspire the type of brand loyalty you'd see with Nintendo/Blizzard/etc.