3 ms·
Great! Another game company that makes insane amounts of cash with addictive flash-in-the-pan games files for IPO. Fast-forward 3 years, and we have another Z
by JonFish85 13y ago
Great! Another game company that makes insane amounts of cash with addictive flash-in-the-pan games files for IPO. Fast-forward 3 years, and we have another Zynga on our hands: a company that has no sustainable way of making money. Relying on short-lived hits does not translate well into a public company (in my opinion). I hate companies like that.
- lowmagnet 13y agoNot to mention the scummy nature of how they entice users to pay to play, such as 'insert coin to continue playing' mechanism after you fail a board a few times. Also offensive is the use of sound in these games to ratchet up excitement like a slot machine.
- huhtenberg 13y agoNot just sounds. It's every NLP trick across all fronts including crying icons and sad faces that only brighten up when you pay. ... all of which is easily defeated by setting date forward, likely meaning that they are making as much money from charging $0.99 for level batches (each of 20 stages to a total of 400+) as they do from selling in-game gimmicks. They just milk this puppy through every hole.
- omni 13y agoPretty much every video game from at least the last three decades has "[used] sound...to ratchet up excitement." I would hardly use the word "offensive" to describe this.
- saraid216 13y agoDon't forget every movie since the end of silent films. ...wait, no. Also silent films. Because orchestra.
- x0054 13y agoOr the endless Facebook spam!
- freyrs3 13y agoCompanies based entirely around building better Skinner boxes is a rather alarming phenomenon.
- James_Duval 13y agoKing have been around for a fair while. The appeal while I was under-employed was that you could win small cash prizes, which was pretty compelling. I was able to use these as seed money to earn from various poker sites. I think that King.com might have a bit more resilience to change than Zynga, and a few more innovative ideas. I am fully prepared to eat my own words though. EDIT: I am also a bit disturbed by the cynical "turn sad to happy faces for $" tricks they are pulling.
- criley2 13y agoI disagree. They're the new X With Friends. Everyone is playing a *Saga game. Just like everyone WAS playing an X With Friends game. In a year, Candy Crush will be old and lame and replacements like Pet Saga will never achieve the same success just like Zynga's newer X With Friends titles failed to achieve the same success as the original. I will be shocked if they can survive post Candy Crush, to be honest. Almost $1M/day is hot stuff, but hopefully they realize how fickle people are with apps.
- jerf 13y agoI know the business school default assumption is that you should basically always reinvest, but every once in a while it makes perfect business sense to just pocket the money, distribute to whoever the shareholders are, and walk away. This is the business equivalent of winning the lottery.
- bdcravens 13y agoRovio has been around as long as King, and I'd argue that Angry Birds has generated more revenue, and while a bit played out, probably has a longer shelf life still than Candy Crush.
- kmfrk 13y agoWith the added bonus of the JOBS Act which means they won't have to publicize their income until very late.
- gstar 13y agoRecord companies, movie studios and even automotive companies are all hits-based businesses, much like games studios. There's no fundamental reason you can't build a sustainable business around this model.