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Ex-Zynga engineer here. I could see a lot of hatred in his post. Couldn't see credibility. Creepy stuff: Spying on players. Getting intimate gaming data, thei
by alagu 15y ago
Ex-Zynga engineer here. I could see a lot of hatred in his post. Couldn't see credibility.
Creepy stuff:
Spying on players. Getting intimate gaming data, their habits, their networks, and how to effectively monetize given X.
This never happened. Zynga doesn't do behavioral targeting at all.
Creepy/bad stuff in my view:
All decisions are short-term. Let us build X games in Y months.
Bad code quality. There is a team which optimizes for the bad code written by engineers at high speed.
Good stuff:
Speed - They are really aggressive. And they never think twice to throw away something if there is a better alternative.
Decisions - Right or wrong, decisions are made with least and things progress.
Meritocracy - I wouldn't call it pure "meritocracy", but when they know you are a smart guy who can ship stuff, they'll love you in $ and positions. I know several young people at VP/GM positions.
Data-driven - I see this as huge plus. Lot of companies are clueless because of not enough feedback-data. A/B testing, phased rollout, metrics are mandatory for any product/feature.
Zynga is 100% data driven. Zynga is not a tech-company, it is a product-manager-company. Product managers are more statisticians than PM. All decisions are from numbers.
- barefoot 15y agoWhy doesn't Zynga do behavioral targeting?
- alagu 15y agoHonestly I don't know why, but I haven't seen any game doing it and there is no infrastructure to do behavioral targeting.
- cbs 15y agoZynga doesn't do behavioral targeting at all. This statement seems fundamentally at odds with the following. Could you explain further? Data-driven - I see this as huge plus. Lot of companies are clueless because of not enough feedback-data. A/B testing, phased rollout, metrics are mandatory for any product/feature. Zynga is 100% data driven. Zynga is not a tech-company, it is a product-manager-company. Product managers are more statisticians than PM. All decisions are from numbers.
- alagu 15y agoData-driven: How many users are engaging with feature X, how much are they spending on item Y, how many users click button Z. Behavioural Targeting: User "A" loves lot of "Strawberry crops" let me show him more of that.
- lancepantz 15y agoI'm an Ex-Zynga engineer as well, payments team. The guy on reddit is a bit bent, parent's comment is far more accurate.
- heyitsnick 15y agoCan you confirm or deny the comment regarding Texas Hold'em Poker, that he deals are pre-computer 'scenarios' rather than actual randomized decks?
- alagu 15y agoSorry, I don't know much about Texas Hold'em Poker's details.