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Zynga Now Worth Less Than Its Own Office Building

Whoa. Flashbacks. I used to work there years ago. There was a wonderful burger joint called the Holy Grill across the street and around the corner a delicious family run breakfast place.

Back on topic: Maybe King will snap it up and they'll go under too. C'mon Mattrick. Become CEO and do what you were born to do.
 
It's referring to intrinsic value.

I mean, if I took a $2 plastic toy, and tapped a couple $100 dollar bills to it, in principle that value of the toy would be several hundred dollars. Almost all of that though, would be in the cash on the toy. If I ever bought the toy, I may pay several hundred dollars for the cash on it, which is a net-nothing, and then pay $2 for the toy.

Lol, amazing analogy
 
So much hate for King despite them putting out a couple of the deepest games around, just because it's in a mobile space. Hilarious how much hate they get for putting out great products.
 
*puts on old irish wizard voice*

I tell ye, this be the curse of the nefarious Mattrick. Everythin' he touches crumbles to ashes 'front our eyes. Behold, for he is a menace not to be taken lightly.
 
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Agent Mattrick doing good work,

Sorry, I know people may be affected. Hope they aren't too badly affected.
 
So much hate for King despite them putting out a couple of the deepest games around, just because it's in a mobile space. Hilarious how much hate they get for putting out great products.

The whole CandySwipe situation, even while it was resolved, still put a very bad taste in people's mouths about the company.
 
So much hate for King despite them putting out a couple of the deepest games around, just because it's in a mobile space. Hilarious how much hate they get for putting out great products.

Yeah man thank god for candy crush, really revolutionizing the way we play match 3 games lol
 
Y'know, a thing I don't get is why don't these mobile game companies invest in traditional console/PC games?
Some of them have pretty deep pockets and it's been proven the traditional market offers a comfortable and constant baseline (well, as long as the product is desired/marketed) to the bubble-based boom and bust mobile model.
You could use a minute fraction of the funds circulating on their sheets to reanimate and hype old beloved franchises.
 
Hah, they thought they would last forever but the mobile/facebook player is but a fickle flame that quickly extinguishes, it has no loyalty, it doesn't stay around, it sees the new shiny thing on the horizon and leaves you for dead quickly.

So much hate for King despite them putting out a couple of the deepest games around, just because it's in a mobile space. Hilarious how much hate they get for putting out great products.

Not really. They ripped off many (if not all) their titles from other people. They tried to sue other developers for a common Nordic word (Saga), a word they used in such a manner it could almost be called offensive to us Scandinavians. They have shown no creativity, no initiative of their own except having marketing power to push their disgustingly cutesy and safe games through the App Store.

I have nothing but contempt for them.

Y'know, a thing I don't get is why don't these mobile game companies invest in traditional console/PC games?
Some of them have pretty deep pockets and it's been proven the traditional market offers a comfortable and constant baseline (well, as long as the product is desired/marketed) to the bubble-based boom and bust mobile model.
You could use a minute fraction of the funds circulating on their sheets to reanimate and hype old beloved franchises.

That requires dedication and work.

Much simpler to just find a game nobody has discovered yet on the app store/android store, rip it off, add some smiling faces to the graphics and then bury the thing under a avalanche of marketing as "THE NEXT BIG THING!"
 
Can't come fast enough.

I don't get this line of thinking at all.

How does a game developer like that bother you? Do you think that once they're gone console and mobile gaming will enter some sort of golden age free of micro-transactions and developers who do everything one of their fans say?

Those are people at a company, most of who probably just wanted a way in to the game industry.
 
Didn't Mattrick leave? Also, it's funny (not in a ha ha *points* way) how fast the company crashed and burned once the Facebook game fad had pretty much up and left.

I don't have data to back this up, but it seems like Zynga went from a slow decline to an outright catastrophic failure when Mattrick got there. Is there no place he goes that doesn't end in a flaming garbage truck... (see xbox one launch).
 
I don't get this line of thinking at all.

How does a game developer like that bother you? Do you think that once they're gone console and mobile gaming will enter some sort of golden age free of micro-transactions and developers who do everything one of their fans say?

Those are people at a company, most of who probably just wanted a way in to the game industry.

A lot of F2P mobile devs continuously try to tap in to some dark places of human psyche for big profits. I'm not really going to shed a tear when their victims hop to another source of addiction and put them out of business.
 
Can't trust mobile players. Shortest attention span I've seen
This is absolutely not true; not even close. I know games that have nearly 10% 3-year cohort retention, which means that people who installed the game on the very first day also came back to exactly 3 years later. That's quite a feat when mobile players admittedly have a decent barrier between trying and actually sticking with the game (like usually more then 40 percent of players drop after the first day). Supercell will definitely prove you very much wrong there.

A lot of F2P mobile devs continuously try to tap in to some dark places of human psyche for big profits. I'm not really going to shed a tear when their victims hop to another source of addiction and put them out of business.
That's your prejudices though, not reality. At least on my side there's plenty of research into to effects on F2P on it's customers, the profiles of high value spenders etc. For most part, it really isn't the evil business people here want to believe. Not to say that psychology and data analysis hasn't become a big part of it (like most other industries these days) or that there aren't ton of bad examples, but overall the prejudices people have here are absolutely ridiculous from the perspective of someone who's delved into years worth of data and research.
 
A lot of F2P mobile devs continuously try to tap in to some dark places of human psyche for big profits. I'm not really going to shed a tear when their victims hop to another source of addiction and put them out of business.

That isn't limited to F2P mobile devs, pyscological hooks are big business, even in AAA
 
The top mobile charts make console gamers look like the most varied, eccentric, and fickle gamers on earth in comparison.

Could the mobile chart placement be the cause of this loyalty? It seems to me the mobile charts are like a vacuum... once you get to a certain height you get sucked up to the top and stay there until you fuck up or get replaced.
 
From 200 to 500 million in 4 years on property value? What the fuck?

Pretty sure they did a lot of renovations on the place. Back when SEGA was in there it felt like an abandoned shopping mall from the 80s. It was actually kind of creepy. Also SF real estate is insane.

Edit: Also they've really gentrified that area of SF in particular.
 
How in the world did Zynga ever have 3000 people? Even 1700 now seems absurd.

company makes big break, company wants to expand asap to make more.

Rovio did the same thing using the weight of angry birds, their one and only real money maker compared to everything else they have tried.
 
King laughs. Candy Crush Saga is the best match 3 out there up with that Creep Simulator, HuniePop. Great match 3 mechanics in both.
 
It's not funny for the ones who may lost their job but it's business... some people lost their jobs because of mobile gaming too.

So I won't tell I'm happy but I always said that even if mobile has a place in gaming, it couldn't be the biggest source of revenue for too long, audience is just too volatile (also games are crap for 99%... like the biggest part of casual games on Wii were).

This doesn't bring new gamers, a big part of mobile gaming market is people who want to try something new and then get bored. A lot of people are playing this when they have nothing else to do... what a great illustration of the perceived value of the games they play.

That's why most of the good games on mobile are not f2p but have a fixed price. Wanting something for free is not knowing what you really want imo (or maybe acknowledging you want sh*t).

King will die too
 
Still 5m+ monthly users according to facebook.
Yup, Facebook gaming is still actually pretty big (I know at least a few games with closer to a million DAU, steady), but there's very little new success to be found and Facebook itself has pivoted away from it (and moved towards embracing mobile game advertising), the technological challenges in securing the future (especially for cross-platform development), and worse monetization (and engagement) that make it simply a dying market for developers even if by numbers it can still be pretty big.
 
^^^^ One more thing worth noting, many people have credit cards tied to their Google/iTunes accounts, making impulse buys in mobile games extremely easy.

This greatly boosts mobile direct monetisation compared to browser/social media, who have to rely at a greater percentage on indirect monetisation like ads.
 
Can't come fast enough.

Well, I've got a friend working there, so I hope not, and you shouldn't also. People tend to forget that behind those Evil Coporate Suits, there are normal people working that need to provide for their families.
 
Can we please update either the title or OP to point to the fact that the source is a satirical site and should not taken as fact which some people still believe it is
 
A lot of F2P mobile devs continuously try to tap in to some dark places of human psyche for big profits. I'm not really going to shed a tear when their victims hop to another source of addiction and put them out of business.

monetized dopamine rewards. it's ethically dubious at best. I really think we need some proper regulation when it comes to these types of products.
 
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