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.

[SquarePixel]

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

The funny thing is, PayPal is mostly just relevant in the US and other western countries. Other countries have better online systems with full encyption, added security and several ways to use their system, and people happily use these to pay their phone and tv bills and everything else. You can also top up your account by buying one of the several coupons from the kiosk near you.

It's actually quite funny how US people put up with PayPal and their shitty and insecure system.

Re:Relevant.

[macraig]

Right now some of us in California are looking for ways to make Meg Whitman less relevant.

Re:Relevant.

[kyrio]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:On-line_payment

eg: Moneybookers

Re:Relevant.

[sortius_nod]

That's why I laugh at US citizens crying about PayPal. For PayPal to operate in Australia they have to adhere to Australian regulations, so I've never actually had any real problems with them. We have strong consumer protection laws (providing people are willing to use them) so screwing over customers isn't a huge option.

Maybe instead of crying foul in PayPal, cry foul on your consumer protection laws. Oh wait, you want small government. The prices you pay for your supposed freedoms.

Re:Relevant.

[macraig]

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

Re:Relevant.

[kyrio]

Everything. Locking accounts to make up money that they lost. Having money stolen from you because someone decided to keep what you've sent and also file that they didn't receive it (or other types of situations like this). Massive fees. No contact information. Stealing donation money.

I can see it now...

[DWMorse]

[Google Search] World of Warcraft

Did you mean: World of Googlecraft?

Crap Flash Games

[TechyImmigrant]

This is more likely to herald the entrance of Google into crap, very buggy flash games with unsubtle ways to get children to bug their parents to pay for very expensive pixels to put in their crap flash game.

Re:Crap Flash Games

[Zerth]

I'm rather surprised Google would invest in Zynga, considering their reputation for working with spyware, scam deal sites, personal information harvesters, and other things that Google would warn you about if you clicked on them in Chrome.

Not that it matters much, but this actually tarnishes my opinion of Google a bit.

Re:Crap Flash Games

[Aliotroph]

Perhaps they took that into account, thinking they might clean that up a bit while they go along. It would make no sense at all for most businesses to do something like that, but Google makes strange business decisions.

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: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."

$200 million?

[mr_lizard13]

Wow, how many experience points did they get for that!

I feel

[Dyinobal]

I feel sort of out of touch I have no idea who zynga is, did they do something important at any point in time?

Re:I feel

[Tukz]

Don't know if it's important, but they had a significant impact on casual games (and possibly also micropayments in same category).
As the article states, they made games like Mafia Wars and FarmVille on Facebook, which are extremely popular.

Zynga has a higher revenue than Facebook itself.

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:I feel

[Surt]

They became the dominant provider of social games, to the tune of being able to pay about a thousand salaries, and are close to becoming the largest gaming company in the world (I think they only have 2 ahead of them, and they are closing in fast).

Re:Another Yahoo?

[Seth Kriticos]

Yahoo!'s (and most of the other search engines) problems was, that they tried to promote most of the auxiliary services through the main site. Though Yahoo! isn't exactly loosing, they just did not get the majority of the search market, but for instance in Japan they are highly popular.. they are also the forth most visited site on the Internet, I wouldn't call that exactly loosing.

Google is doing a lot of stuff too, but most of it is standing alone (i.e. youtube) and is self-promoting.

They could clean up the start page a bit (or at least make it more customizable), but generally they are doing search + ads as primary business and the other stuff is loosely connected.

As for checkout.. well, PayPal was the first major popular global Internet payment option, but they are causing a lot of grief lately and will loose importance.

What will succeed them? My best bet is Amazon Payments, as they have attractive payment conditions (the nearest I have seen so far to micro-payments) and they have an established customer base with access to bank account data and _some_ trust of the users.

Google has no business where people regularly spend money from their account. They will have a hard time to make people set up payment account on their site, but it's not impossible.

Google's Defense of Flash

[shway]

This probably sheds some new light into Google's sudden defense of Flash blog post from June 29

http://apiblog.youtube.com/2010/06/flash-and-html5-tag.html

Investing in a bunch of Flash games means they have to now start propping up the Flash platform instead of only touting the virtues of HTML5.

Re:Google's Defense of Flash

[trapnest]

This probably sheds some new light into Google's sudden defense of Flash blog post from June 29

No, no it doesn't. Why do you people refuse to accept that HTML5 is simply not ready for primetime and get over it. No, it's got to be some secret plot from microapplegooglesoft.

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

[Enderandrew]

How is PayPal evil?

Full disclosure, I'm a PayPal engineer.

Re:Zynga are evil

[Enderandrew]

Any transaction through PayPal gets fraud protection. My mother got caught in a phishing scheme. Her bank account and credit cards were all linked through PayPal. They contacted all the banks for her and got all the charges reversed.

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

[Enderandrew]

I have a friend who has worked in Fraud for years and years. I wouldn't call him evil or a dick. In fact, he's one of the better people I know. He went through training to become a Sheriff so he could help people even more, but PayPal ended up bringing him back to work for them.

When people tell me their account was closed for "bullshit reasons", the most common cause for that is someone putting up a PayPal donation link, claiming their site is a non-profit/charity, and not getting off their ass to file paperwork with PayPal. In that case, PayPal is only upholding federal law because we're heavily regulated.

In fact, I've seen two different stories on Slashdot about PayPal locking accounts of FOSS companies over that very reason. There isn't much we can about federal laws.

However, if you think you've got a legitimate gripe, email me at enderandrew at gmail dot com and I'll talk to people at work.

Re:Zynga are evil

[Enderandrew]

I've only been with PayPal for 8 months. She got caught in a phishing scheme years ago. I had no influence on the events. PayPal contacted the banks that handled her checking account and credit cards, and had all the charges reversed in 3 days.

Their fraud policies are one Google search away.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/Marketing/securitycenter/buy/Protection-outside

The OP suggested they are evil because they don't provide fraud protection. They do, and have for years. They also actively go after people for phishing scams.

If there is something evil about the company I work for, I'd like to know. It would certainly influence my decision to continue working there or not. But so far, I haven't seen anything actually evil about the company.

Re:Zynga are evil

[Enderandrew]

PayPal did have a proper bank before way back in the day. It was the first online bank, called X.com I do believe. X.com is now used for developer tools.

Banks are regulated differently. I know PayPal has looked at trying to either have a proper bank back end again, but hasn't yet. Banks aren't seen in a very positive light right now, which may be part of the decision Walmart also stopped their efforts at forming a bank.

Re:Zynga are evil

[Enderandrew]

So you didn't go through PayPal, and your payment processor didn't fight to protect you, so that is PayPal's fault?

PayPal and eBay are linked at the hip. eBay makes their money off sellers, but if buyers aren't happy, then it is hard to sell anything.

PayPal and eBay had tried to straddle a line of making sellers happy, and making buyers happy. They lean back and forth across that line.

I can tell you this. We spend a fortune on customer service centers. We go nuts going over customer service metrics, and we're investing even more. It is a huge focus within the company, to try and keep everyone happy. I work in IT, don't talk to customers, and I see get emails about verbatim comments from our customers.

We also ask third party companies to gather information and tell us how we're doing when it comes to customer service.

I can also tell you that when there is a dispute, PayPal doesn't just simply tell sellers to fuck off. We have groups that just focus on dispute resolution.

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?

Don't be evil

[Adrian Lopez]

It would seem that "don't be evil" doesn't include not doing business with the likes of this asshole.

Just what we do not need, more Farmville

[Tisha_AH]

What a deal, the creators of Farmville and Mafia Wars, two games that would be a better fit for the early 90's.

There are some funny YouTube videos on both of those games.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odBDAcOEKuI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kNjC50BzB0&feature=channel

We can use some Google influence in gaming

[unity100]

since advent of cds and industrialization of gaming, games increasingly became brutal capitalism products, purely made to make the maximum profit over them without paying much attention to the gamers' desires. all games, gaming studios either have gone the way of becoming extremely bloated, little gameplay - max visuals, max gore/extremism range, or gone the way of maximum simplicity, minimum effort way. all are done to target the general populations most exploitable characteristics to just make the box sell. rest is not that important. and the studios who were doing real games have either had to go the same way, or got bought by conglomerates and made to choose the same way.

thus some google influence may be good in this sector. we need more gameplay, more fun, entertainment in games.

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

How is it that nobody has mentioned?

[drachenstern]

How is it that nobody has mentioned that this is just the sort of thing to help launch Google Me? Google needs someone on their social network to bring people over, and as many people as like playing these social games, it won't be that hard to get people onto Google Me from using this.

So between Zynga leaving Facebook but people loving the games and people being upset with Facebook, now's the perfect time for Google to make deals to get people onto their social network.