5 ms·

This story (Draw Something losing ~5M customers/month) annoys me. It's an example of not knowing the difference between causation, correlation and coincidence.

by cletus 15y ago

This story (Draw Something losing ~5M customers/month) annoys me. It's an example of not knowing the difference between causation, correlation and coincidence. In at least some cases people are making that "mistake" for link-bait reasons and to push an agenda (eg they hate Zynga). The idea that 5M/month Draw Something care about the Zynga purchase is ludicrous. It seems Zynga has made some annoying changes to the game, at least for those that use Facebook to login, but even so. I think the only story here is that Zynga overpaid for something that was peaking. They may purchased OMGPOP just in case it turned into something huge. There's plenty of that going on (cough Instragram cough). I've tried Draw Something. It's amusing and I can see the appeal but from all usage patterns I've seen the game has a pretty short shelf life. A game with a short shelf life is going to lose lots of customers once it peaks. It's inevitable. As for how easy it is to make a game, that's actually hard. I believe you should also separate "normal" games from "social" games here as both are radically different. Normal games are like blockbuster movies. You want people to buy up big. You deliberately build up the hype. There is very little in the way of long tail in revenue in most cases (other than sequels). I consider this a fairly "honest" or ethical practice because you pay the sticker price and you have your fun. Social games are more like TV shows. You're trying to build a persistent audience and you're all about the long tail. The part that bothers me is the psychological trickery that goes into this. Social games are really about manipulating the psychological triggers for addiction and I don't really see a distinction between this and, say, gambling addiction. Some people spend an awful lot on these games (I believe Zynga calls people who spend over $10k "whales" [1]). Zynga and similar companies like to whitewash this with "maybe they're just rich". I believe they know better. They are (IMHO) preying on the weak and those arguably with mental health problems ("it's not unethical, it's funethical!"). Successful social games are all about Big Data. Figuring out what works, what doesn't, analyzing your customer usage and adjusting to maximize revenue and retention. They're not even "games" really. They're just exercises in repetition. Anyway, rant aside, I don't like Zynga either but please don't confuse the OMGPOP purchase with a short shelf-life peaking purchase. [1]: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/zyngas-quest-for-bigspending-whales-07072011.html http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/zyngas-quest-for-bigspe...

kiba 15y ago
Remind me of The Curse of the Cow Clicker at http://wired.com/magazine/2011/12/ff_cowclicker/all/1 http://wired.com/magazine/2011/12/ff_cowclicker/all/1
jcc80 15y ago
The Forbes article definitely isn't praising Zynga. But, I also didn't read that it stated the loss of users had anything to do with Zynga. The article writer actually infers that the loss of users would have happened regardless. "but they must know that if they had waited just one more month to sell, they wouldn’t have been able to command anywhere near that price after losing so many users." It just references the omgpop acquisition because it was very recent which makes the story more interesting.
- sb1752 15y ago
  Spot on. Nowhere did it read that users left OMGPOP because of Zynga.
physcab 15y ago
Your comparison between normal and social economic models within these games is interesting, especially how you equate it to ethics. But if you're going to gripe about people who spend enormous amounts of money who may not have it (ie. addicted players) you also have to consider people who spend enormous amounts of time as well. Because if you're going to go there, then its equally as harmful spending time away from your friends and family in front of a computer screen, especially when you consider the fact that you don't need any money to do it. "Yes StarcraftII, I will gladly give you $50 and hundreds of hours of my life away, but thank god you're way more ethical of a game than that one that takes up 2 minutes of my bus ride and cons me into spending $1.99 on my way to work" Addiction is everywhere. Its a sad fact of life. There are people who are addicted to shopping, but Macy's doesn't turn away repeat customers. There are people addicted to food, but Olive Garden/ McDonalds doesn't turn away morbidly obese people. There are people addicted to drinking, but Safeway doesn't do a health scan and deny these people from buying liqour. Similarly, I wouldn't expect Zynga or Blizzard to be like "hey, you've spent $10k/1000 hours on my game, why don't you go see your family or put your money to better use".

by cletus 15y ago

kiba 15y ago

Remind me of The Curse of the Cow Clicker at http://wired.com/magazine/2011/12/ff_cowclicker/all/1 http://wired.com/magazine/2011/12/ff_cowclicker/all/1

jcc80 15y ago

The Forbes article definitely isn't praising Zynga. But, I also didn't read that it stated the loss of users had anything to do with Zynga. The article writer actually infers that the loss of users would have happened regardless. "but they must know that if they had waited just one more month to sell, they wouldn’t have been able to command anywhere near that price after losing so many users." It just references the omgpop acquisition because it was very recent which makes the story more interesting.

sb1752 15y ago
Spot on. Nowhere did it read that users left OMGPOP because of Zynga.

physcab 15y ago

Your comparison between normal and social economic models within these games is interesting, especially how you equate it to ethics. But if you're going to gripe about people who spend enormous amounts of money who may not have it (ie. addicted players) you also have to consider people who spend enormous amounts of time as well. Because if you're going to go there, then its equally as harmful spending time away from your friends and family in front of a computer screen, especially when you consider the fact that you don't need any money to do it. "Yes StarcraftII, I will gladly give you $50 and hundreds of hours of my life away, but thank god you're way more ethical of a game than that one that takes up 2 minutes of my bus ride and cons me into spending $1.99 on my way to work" Addiction is everywhere. Its a sad fact of life. There are people who are addicted to shopping, but Macy's doesn't turn away repeat customers. There are people addicted to food, but Olive Garden/ McDonalds doesn't turn away morbidly obese people. There are people addicted to drinking, but Safeway doesn't do a health scan and deny these people from buying liqour. Similarly, I wouldn't expect Zynga or Blizzard to be like "hey, you've spent $10k/1000 hours on my game, why don't you go see your family or put your money to better use".