Zynga Investment May Herald Google Games

A post at TechCrunch claims knowledge of large investments from Google into social game company Zynga, makers of FarmVille and Mafia Wars. The amount of money involved is not small — somewhere in the $100-200 million range — and could facilitate Google's expansion into the games market. Quoting: "The investment was made by Google itself, not Google Ventures, say our sources, and it's a highly strategic deal. Zynga will be the cornerstone of a new Google Games to launch later this year, say multiple sources. Not only will Zynga's games give Google Games a solid base of social games to build on, but it will also give Google the beginning of a true social graph as users log into Google to play the games. And I wouldn't be surprised to see PayPal being replaced with Google Checkout as the primary payment option. Zynga is supposedly PayPal's biggest single customer, and Google is always looking for ways to make Google Checkout relevant."

Comments

Relevant.

[ScrewMaster]

Personally, I'm always looking for ways to make Paypal less relevant.

Re:Relevant.

[macraig]

Hmmmm... are you really wishing Texas or Arizona were more relevant?

Time to lose my Google account.

[Sowelu]

If my Google account starts showing up in random places like my Facebook used to (back when I still had a Facebook account), and if I ever see a single Farmville style friend request show in my email, I'm dropping my gmail/whatever account and not looking back.

Zynga are evil

[__aailob1448]

But Paypal is also evil.

I feel the same about this that I felt about the Iraq war and Saddam Hussein.

Re:Zynga are evil

[Surt]

Good for them if they've changed ... of course, the problem is that once you have a reputation ...

Re:Zynga are evil

[Anonymous Coward]

No, screw you. You made a baseless accusation that the company is evil. A thoughtful employee of the company asks you why and demonstrates that you are wrong Your answer is- "well it's out there now". Maybe the burden should be yours to form your own opinions instead of following biased crowds.

Re:Google Android tie in

[pandrijeczko]

It is incredibly difficult to find any artistic merit to them

Why do you need to find "artistic merit" in something that is designed to be simple entertainment?

Personally, I can go to the cinema and enjoy a movie that raises important social issues or splatters blood, gore, big guns and semi-naked women across the screen at me for two hours - the only thing that matters is did I come away feeling that the entertainment value justified the cost and effort.

and on top of that they aren't actually entertaining to the vast majority of people who play these mindless games

You're actually contradicting yourself here. Surely someone who didn't find something entertaining wouldn't do it, the whole purpose of entertainment being to fill some spare time with something amusing? Just because *YOU* consider it mindless does not automatically mean everyone else does.

But there are a lot of things that suck that are still popular, like cheap fast food and reality television.

I myself do not eat fast food or watch reality television because I don't like either. But I've plenty of other things going on around me not to care that much, and if people do enjoy that stuff then let them get on with it. I'm not that self-conscious that I need to find ways to elevate myself above the general populace so I can sneer down at them.

Also the personal attacks on me make it pretty obvious that your post is a troll. But I had fun responding anyways.

I'm afraid you started with the personal attacks by elevating yourself to a sneering position over people who do enjoy those games. Or are they supposed to stop what they're doing and take your opinions as the written law just because you deigned to voice your opinions?

Re:I feel

[hedwards]

Google would've probably been better off buying Popcap, the games are quite good and a worthy show piece for HTML5 based gaming.

Re:Crap Flash Games

[tomhudson]

The terms of use are also very slimy

You waive your right to sue, to join others in a class action or other collective lawsuit, to filing an injunction,

Their privacy policy also sucks - remember how facebook leaks your personal data - zynga admits it:

. We may offer you the opportunity to submit other information about yourself (such as gender, age, occupation, hobbies, interests, zip code, etc.), or we may be able to collect that information from social networking systems on which you have used Zynga Games or SNS Apps ...

We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services, Zynga games and other users of Zynga, to supplement your profile.

Yes, zynga is a spyware business.

Re:Crap Flash Games

[Cylix]

Well being as how they publicly admit to do everything awful in the universe to make a buck and stay afloat I'm not surprised.

To the guys credit he was pretty much right on. The people who would read the article and actually worry are the ones they were not targeting. Basically, any informed viewer of their applications they knew they were already going to make less on.

He was also a bit prophetic and wagered that the scum bugs would be pushed out of the business as it legitimized. It's a bit like a wave in that the gray area guys can occasionally rise up as they follow the tide of rising popularity.

Still, what he said made me understand that nothing good come from associating with them. I made sure never to use another zynga game again. To be on the safe side I'll probably avoid google's variants as well.

Re:Crap Flash Games

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook has more traffic than Google

Absolute rubbish! How about backing it up with some research? FB is a mere blip on google's traffic, let alone aggregating google's sites.

Re:Google Android tie in

[icebraining]

http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/content/cultivated-play-farmville

Cultivated Play: Farmville

by A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz -- SUNY Buffalo (Amherst)
March 09, 2010 - 22:44
[This essay was given as a talk at SUNY Buffalo, 28 January 2010, the day after Howard Zinn's death. I have left the text unaltered, to better reflect the spirit of the talk.]

"I'm worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become successful cogs in the wheel - let the wheel spin them around as it wants without taking a look at what they're doing."
-- Howard Zinn

The great social historian Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States, died yesterday of a heart attack. Zinn devoted his life to educating Americans in their country's history, that they might better understand their place in its present. Such understanding is today at a premium. Ours is a time of confusion, of unprecedented changes that outpace our perceptions. As Zinn might have said, the wheel keeps spinning faster, and the faster it spins the harder it is to see.

At such times, and at such speeds, the task of educating ourselves becomes all the more urgent. We are citizens of a democracy, and democratic citizenship has always been a difficult skill to master. This is why Aristotle tells us that, in an ideal state, citizens would possess ample leisure time: the education of a citizen depends upon contemplation, deliberation, and training. Citizenship requires cultivation and, as any farmer would tell us, cultivation takes time.

Perhaps it seems a waste of time to discuss video games at a moment like this. After all, this is a serious discussion, and games are supposedly frivolous things. Most any concerned parent might say, "Play is an occasion of pure waste: waste of time, energy, ingenuity, skill, and often of money...."[1] So said Roger Caillois in his book, Man, Play, and Games. Of course, Caillois went on to praise games as a source of joy, as well as a healthy means of "escape from responsibility and routine."[2] For Caillois, as for Aristotle, games are in fact essential to citizenship: they allow us to refresh and renew ourselves, help to socialize us, and afford us opportunities to cultivate our imaginations and reasoning skills.[3]

If games are essential to citizenship, then this could be a promising time for our democracy. According to a recent survey, over half of American adults play video games, and one in five play everyday or almost everyday. Does this mean we are becoming better citizens? Ninety-seven percent of American teenagers play video games.[4] Does this mean they will become more politically active? Before you dismiss these questions, keep in mind that in October 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama became the first U. S. Presidential candidate to advertise in video games, when his "Early Voting Has Begun" ads appeared in Madden 2009, Burnout Paradise, and other Electronic Arts video games.[5]

Much has been made of President Obama's sophisticated use of new media technologies. He utilized the internet extensively in organizing and raising funds for his campaign, and has maintained an active presence on popular social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. To illustrate, he is currently taking questions about last night's State of the Union address via YouTube, and plans to answer those questions next week in a live, online video feed.[6] While it remains unclear how such events are affecting politics, it is clear that ne

Re:Crap Flash Games

[N0Man74]

I felt the same way when I read this.

I guess it's "Don't Be Evil... just invest in someone else to be Evil for you."