FarmVille Now Worth More Than EA

tekgoblin writes "Zynga, the creators of the popular hit Facebook game FarmVille, should be happy today as the company's worth has passed that of EA (Electronic Arts)."

Comments

Re:Well duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to who, Zynga?

"I don't fucking want innovation," the ex-employee recalls Pincus [Zynga's CEO] saying. "You're not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers."

http://www.bnet.com/blog/high-tech/zynga-8217s-winning-strategy-don-8217t-innovate-copy-execute-and-scale/1157

More likely about the stock market

[Moraelin]

Well, it probably just says more about the stock market than anything else.

It's not that hard to find (usually temporary) situations where it acts... strangely. E.g., back when it was a subsidiary of 3Com, at one point Palm was valued so high that the shares 3Com owned in it were worth more than the total worth of 3Com. With the obvious paradox that then the rest of 3Com was essentially worth a negative number, although they were turning up a tidy profit and all. With the also (not so) paradoxical situation that a bunch of "pundits" and shareholders were actually wanting 3Com to get rid of those other divisions, although, again, they were actually turning a tidy profit.

Re:Social games

[Eponymous Coward]

Casual gamers have increased the total number of people who play games. I don't think it has decreased the number of hard core gamers that are looking for something deep. If anything, the potential audience for a big, deep game is now larger.

The only problem that I see is that is getting more and more difficult for game companies to justify charging $50 or more for a game. Only one of the games I have bought in the past year was more than $10 and I was really disappointed in that game (ModNation Racers). Cheap, but awesome (IMO) games on Apple devices and Steam sales have really lowered what I'm willing to pay for a game. $10 or under and it's a no-brainer. If the game sucks, I don't care as I'm only out a few dollars.

Re:Estimated Worth and the 7 Eleven Stratagem

[Monkeedude1212]

I ultimately wonder what that means for Facebook's privacy issues - knowing that essentially the developer gets a lot of un-needed info, Zynga essentially has as much power to abuse Facebook's privacy policy as Mark Zuckerberg but everyone just likes to hate on Z since he's the one who started it all.

I remember there was a big issue a while back when EA wanted to put adverts into its games (I believe Battlefield 2142 was their prime pilot candidate) - and everyone made a big deal because it was like they were able to target you better because they knew what kind of games you played and it would be another venue for kids to get bombarded. There was a supposed rumour that the game was going to go through your browsing cookies looking for info but ultimately that wasn't the case (I don't think EA was stupid enough to try pulling that off without some backlash).

But here you've got what essentially amounts to an even bigger invasion of privacy - and people don't even notice because the blame game currently points at someone else. Many sources have supposedly caught Pincus (CEO of Zynga) saying that scamming users was part of their business model, though its usually small articles on places like techcrunch, so I take it with a bit of salt. Anyways, the point is that everyone seems to be mad at Zuckerberg for creating this monstrosity designed to pluck your personal info - meanwhile someone else who is probably worse in moral integrity also has access to it.

See this is where people say Facebook is the next Myspace. I don't think they've realized that Facebook elevated the game entirely, it's not just 12-30 year olds using it now - it's not just a fad social network for teenagers - its everybody, in almost every age group, and simple applications built into the platform have made their way into 711. So Facebook Apps are too addictive for most people to drop, so they don't want Facebook to go down. If Facebook isn't in threat of going down, Zuckerberg doesn't have to worry much. If Zuckerberg doesn't have to worry, then Pincus doesn't have to worry. Its a vicious circle where they both support each other and no one can stop them.

oblig

[WhiteDragon]

http://xkcd.com/802/

"Best trivia I learned while working on this: Man, Farmville is so huge! Do you realize its the second-biggest browser-based social-networking-centered farming game in the WORLD? Then you wait for the listener to do a double-take."