Zynga’s Pincus fights back against copycat accusations
Mark Pincus, the CEO of Zynga, isn’t pleased with reports that Zynga is ripping off games from small developers so he is doing something about it–wielding his pen to write passionate manifestos to employees invoking Silicon Valley greats like Apple.
After a game developer accused Zynga of copying a game called “Tiny Tower”, Pincus sent a 60-line memo to employees to make sure his flock knows Zynga has done nothing wrong, (the memo was leaked to the blog VentureBeat and later obtained by Reuters).
“Google didn’t create the first search engine. Apple didn’t create the first mp3 player or tablet. And, Facebook didn’t create the first social network. But these companies have evolved products and categories in revolutionary ways.”
And just like tech heavyweights did not reinvent the wheel, neither does Zynga need to with its simple but addicting games.
“We don’t need to be first to market. We need to be the best in market … Zynga Poker, FarmVille, CityVille and Words with Friends, none of these games were the first to market in their category but we made them the most fun and social,” he said.
Pincus also shows reverence to video game history involving games where players build towers-”it’s important to note that this category has existed since 1994 with games like Sim Tower.”
His arguments are perfectly valid. It is just amusing that he is getting so worked up about claims his company is stealing ideas from a game called ”Tiny Tower,” and then later defending the authenticity of Zynga’s new Bingo game to VentureBeat.
Is Zynga’s lead slipping on Facebook?
Electronic Arts, the second-largest video game company in the U.S., is stealing market share away from Zynga, the top dog in social games on Facebook, according to a new report on gaming behavior.
The report, released on Wednesday, is based on data that tracks the game play of more than 10 million users of Raptr, a website that automatically tracks its users’ video game activity on Facebook, consoles and PCs.
“EA has stolen 10 to 25 percent playtime from Zynga’s top games,” the report said.
Since the launch of Sims Social, EA’s Facebook game that has more than 66 million monthly active users, Zynga games such as FarmVille, CityVille and Empires & Allies have all lost players, the report shows.
To be sure, Zynga still dwarfs EA’s users on Facebook by more than 2-1 according to the website AppData.
The report comes a day after Zynga unleashed a barrage of games upon its rivals and gave a sneak peek of a mysterious new platform called “Project Z” that could reduce its reliance on Facebook.
One of the key finding is that EA succeeded in bringing players of the Sims franchise to its Facebook game “but more impressively they were able to capture market share from Zynga.” EA can also tap games from PopCap, the company it bought over the summer, such as Plant vs. Zombies and Bejeweled 3 to start releasing more games on Facebook, it said.
I agree with most of Zyngas moves..I can’t wait to play Karma Kingdom on my Ipad.
Zynga plots its mobile stategy
Zynga wants to get into your pocket. As the publisher of games like, “Word with Friends,” a Scrabble-clone popular on Apple devices and since February, on Android platforms, Zynga, known as the top games publisher on Facebook, is likely trying to reduce its reliance of Mark Zuckerberg and co’s platform.
“You should play and you should pay,” says David Ko, the former Yahoo executive who moved to Zynga in November to spearhead its mobile push.
In a recent interview, Ko told Reuters that Zynga’s mobile strategy has two parts: Creating mobile versions of existing Web titles like ”FarmVille” and “Mafia Wars” and, having users play games on their mobile devices before anywhere else, like on “Words with Friends.”
In the U.S, Ko says, mobile games are growing at a “high clip,” but that the faster growth is in markets like South East Asia where people are turning to games first on their smartphones since PCs are less prevalent.
“In markets like South East Asia, mobile-first experiences are going to lead the way,” Ko says.
Next year, users should expect a lot of different types of Zynga mobile games, Ko says. A franchise it could certainly tap is CityVille, which grew to 101 million users in no time but that has no current mobile version.
