Facebook and Zynga Move Apart 64
another random user writes with news that Facebook and Zynga have altered their business arrangement to become less closely intertwined. Zynga.com will no longer be promoted on the social networking site, and Zynga won't have to show ads for Facebook.
"Zynga is the developer behind Farmville, a game once mostly played on Facebook, which at its peak attracted 82 million players a month. Zynga now has its own games platform, but players will no longer be able to share their progress on Facebook. Zynga's share price fell by 13% in after-hours trading following the news. It is the latest blow for the company, which last month announced job cuts and studio closures. ... Facebook said the move would bring its relationship with Zynga in line with other games studios. ... Recent figures suggest 80% of Zynga's revenue comes from Facebook users."
zynga was the henry ford of the new games market (Score:2, Interesting)
They pioneered casual gaming. the kind of stuff people could play that had nothing to do with hack and slack and murder. most people have no dreams of imagining themselves shooting others or hacking them to death like the so called real gamers. funny thing is that most of their games were just like the so called hard core real games.
too bad they ignored mobile and are now history while lots of other studios like Rovio are now making lots of money
just like alfred sloan passing henry ford back in the day because ford refused to deviate from his original vision of a single model of mass produced car
Everybody in that building tanks (Score:4, Interesting)
Every business that has rented the building in San Francisco which Zynga now occupies has tanked.
First it was the Fashion Center [portmanusa.com], a space for the rag trade in San Francisco. It was never more than half rented, and then the entire garment industry in SF collapsed.
Then for a while it was occupied by Sega. (Remember Sega? Game console maker? No?) Some of the cooler interior spaces were removed (the building had a stage and fashion runway, and a nice atrium) and the place became office space.
Now Zynga owns it. In an excess of confidence, they bought the building. Now they have too much office space, and everybody is bored with Farmville and its clones.