Email
RSS
Twitter
Facebook
Zynga’s New Café World Game Takes on Playfish’s Restaurant City
September 30th, 2009
| By Christopher Mack | 38 Comments » |
With around 16 million monthly active users, Playfish’s Restaurant City has been growing steadily since its launch — monetizing through a variety of virtual goods, it appears to be a solid hit. Well, that popularity has been noted by the competition, and it looks like Zynga is stepping into the restaurant business as well with its newest title, Café World.
As far as basic concepts go, Café World is the same as Restaurant City. Each player creates restaurant, decorates it, hires friends, and basically runs a business. However, both games do feel very different and are likely to appeal to different types of people. Here’s a closer look at the differences:
Cooking – Point: Café World
Obviously making food is a huge part of a restaurant game and creating an ample smorgasbord is part of the fun. In order to cook food in Café World, players have to purchase the ingredients to a recipe after clicking on an empty stove. They then have to cut, dice, smash, or whatever else is needed to prepare a myriad of dishes before cooking them. Dishes take anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 days to cook and then it is placed on a counter for serving with a set number of times it can be served. The more time it takes to cook, and the greater the cost, the more servings available. Customers can feast on already-made food, and can have a very wide selection (even though the customers don’t “order” it themselves); space is only limited by the number of counters and stoves that a player has.
Restaurant City, on the other hand, does cooking passively. Patrons order from your preset menu of limited dishes (thankfully it has been increased, but is still limited to a finite number, regardless of level), but you have to trade for, buy, or earn individual ingredients on a daily basis before you can make a certain dish. Yes, trading the ingredients adds a social element, and yes you can level up dishes, but it just feels less involved than Café World. Point: Café World.
Hiring Friends – Point: Restaurant City
Not only was Playfish the first to introduce friend hires in a major game, but users have a lot of control over it. Granted, you cannot change the look of a friend’s avatar, but you can at least change a uniform and job. As it stands, Café World only allows them to be waiters at the moment, and their clothing seems to be unchangeable. Restaurant City on the other hand… if you want to put a friend in a French maid’s outfit, then by all means, go ahead. Point: Restaurant City.
Restaurant Expansion – Point: Café World
This is one of the biggest differences between the games. As you level up in Restaurant City, you either earn new employees or a bigger restaurant. However, in Café World, you must manually expand and to do so, you must have “neighbors.” This means you must have friends playing the game in order to have a bigger place. Frankly, the trading of ingredients, working in others’ restaurants, and having your friends all on one street, in Restaurant City, seemed social enough. However, if friends don’t want to play, it won’t affect you too much. For Café World, if you can’t get friends to play, then you seem to be stuck with a tiny little restaurant. Sure you can take the Mafia Wars approach and add random people, but that just sort of looses any personal meaning. Nonetheless, you could have a huge restaurant in a significantly shorter amount of time. With that in mind – Point: Café World.
Customization – Point: Restaurant City
This is the most important part of both of these games, hands down. From oriental, to medieval, to modern, these games provide players with the means to truly create something that is of their own style. However, the Playfish title simply has more options than Zynga’s. Okay, yes, it has been out longer, so the developer have had more time to add new items, but beyond this, the players can only decorate their interiors with Café World. Restaurant City, on the other hand, allows you to customize both the interior and exterior of your restaurant; a feature that has been available since day one. Point: Restaurant City.
Frankly, both games are good, and it really comes down to a play style choice. Café World has more involved cooking and dish selections and potential, rapid expansion, while Restaurant City has more control over hired friends and better customization. Will these features change in the coming months? Probably, as both companies add more content. However, with the massive head start and the tremendously larger selection of items to decorate with that Restaurant City has, it will be a rigorous challenge for Café World to catch up.
Zynga, however, is far larger than Playfish, with 126 million monthly active users total across its games versus Playfish’s 55.3 million. Both companies cross-promote games to users. This means that both companies have far fewer unique users than the above numbers suggest — but the numbers also indicate that Zynga has many more opportunities to cross-promote Café World via massive hits like FarmVille. Zynga has also aggressively bought advertising for games on sites like Facebook. So, Playfish, for all of its success with Restaurant City, appears to have a serious competitor on its hands — even though Café World currently has only around 32 users.
Exclusive In Depth Market Research Report on the Future of the Social Gaming Market from Inside Network
Download The Guide to Marketing Your Brand, Company, Product, or Service Inside Facebook
Strategic Facebook Platform Ecosystem Overview and Guide For Agencies & Brands
French / Français
Spanish / Español
Italian / Italiano
Exclusive In Depth Market Research Report on the State and Future of Virtual Goods in the US
Track Facebook's International Growth in 95 Global Markets with our Monthly Reports and Analysis
Inside Facebook analyzes 12 major Facebook marketing efforts from leading brands. Who comes out on top?
October 1st, 2009 at 9:43 pm
hio
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:58 am
Zynga must lack creativity. They are constantly stealing game ideas from other companies. Its amazing how much of a copy they makes these games, with Farmville and Farmtown and Restaurant City and Cafe World, its obvious they feel they must monopolize the market by stealing these other games. Hey Zynga…If you think their game is good and you want it under your name, BUY THEM OUT, don’t steal their great ideas!
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:00 pm
[...] Zynga game called “Café World,” a virtual restaurant game that appears to be competing directly with Playfish hit Restaurant City. While Restaurant City has 15.7 million monthly actives, Café World is just getting started [...]
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:30 pm
[...] Zynga game called “Café World,” a virtual restaurant game that appears to be competing directly with Playfish hit Restaurant City. While Restaurant City has 15.7 million monthly actives, Café World is just getting started [...]
October 3rd, 2009 at 12:27 am
i would love to play this how do i get the appliance
I have yovlle, farmville and rollercoaster kingdom
i play the he payfish resturant ame but if you have one i know it is what i want o play
October 4th, 2009 at 1:58 am
Cafe World keeps crashing and “rebooting” for me. This coupled with the less-than-appealing graphics makes Restaurant City the winner for me. But it’s still new, so I’m not setting that in stone yet. But for now, Restaurant City’s lovely to play and loads cuter to watch.
October 4th, 2009 at 7:02 am
[...] First Freemium Game for Xbox Live Zynga to Partner with InComm for Prepaid Virtual Currency Cards? Zynga’s New Café World Game Takes on Playfish’s Restaurant City Playdom To Introduce Pre-Paid Cards in Retail Stores — with InComm Booyah Raises $5 Million; Our [...]
October 4th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
[...] First Freemium Game for Xbox Live Zynga to Partner with InComm for Prepaid Virtual Currency Cards? Zynga’s New Café World Game Takes on Playfish’s Restaurant City Playdom To Introduce Pre-Paid Cards in Retail Stores — with InComm Booyah Raises $5 Million; Our [...]
October 7th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
cool
October 8th, 2009 at 10:39 am
[...] characters — especially walking and eating. See our review of the two games for more on that. Café World has done some features in a more interesting way, like restaurant [...]
October 10th, 2009 at 9:37 am
[...] Cafe World is not just copy of Zynga’s major social gaming application provider Playfish’s 16 million member Restaurant City game. In Cafe World users create restaurants, market them through their social networks and sell virtual good. While some of the features are comparable across both games, Cafe World does have some unique elements, like restaurant expansion. For a review of the two games, check out this link from Inside Social Games. [...]
October 12th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
[...] least original developer. FarmVille and Café World both use some original dynamics. If anything, improving quality is now a key part of Zynga’ [...]
October 14th, 2009 at 4:06 am
it means the employees on cafe world is not allowed to change the job? if u hire an employees its automatic to be a waiter? what if u have a lot of waiters and only 1 chef you cant change the job of your employees?
October 16th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I purchased a sliding window thinking maybe I could have a drive thru, but I suppose that isn’t possible. Wouldn’t that be great though?!?!?!?!
October 16th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
[...] http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2009/09/30/zyngas-new-cafe-world-game-takes-on-playfishs-restauran... a few seconds ago from web [...]
October 26th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Cafe world sucks I spent 50$ getting coins on there with my cell phone and this was 2 weeks ago they didnt give me my coins or give me any sort of credit or money back
November 3rd, 2009 at 5:17 pm
[...] FarmVille, Zynga’s Café World makes its debut at #2 with a little over 27.5 million monthly users. A number reached in an [...]
November 8th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Ok, I have played both games. It and Farmville and now the Fishworld are flat out carbon copy’s. Just open them up in two instances of your web browser and compare side by side. In most cases they barely bothered to even change the color of the items. Legally I have no idea how playfish doesn’t have a case here. Seems like Zynga just strips away some of the Playfish features, changes a bit of code and claims to have made a different game. They do improve the quality of the graphics but pound for pound, they look so similar. I call shenanigans!!!!
November 16th, 2009 at 4:48 am
i love love dis games lol
December 5th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
I Just Simply hate Cafe World. It makes my internet go slower and makes the Computer Hang. It’s so hard to level up in Cafe World. The food you cook is limited and can get spoiled. While in Restaurant City, None of that would happen. x(
December 18th, 2009 at 7:16 am
I just have a question, can cafe world be purchased and downloaded on a computer?
December 26th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
i love this game
January 29th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
wonderfull
February 15th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
hohoooo
February 15th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Its not working again!
February 16th, 2010 at 10:08 am
zynga,what’s happen with abyan cafe world?? why it was gone?? i can’t play it anymore.!!!
February 16th, 2010 at 6:57 pm
I want to playing cafe world. the cafe world is fun
February 21st, 2010 at 12:06 pm
how can u get your cafe world up when some 1 block it for u and it do not tell u how to reinstall the game at all i need help
February 23rd, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Have ben locked out of Cafe’World for almost 3wks & food has spoiled. PLEASE get me back in. Same happened with Farmville. Thanks, Monica
February 24th, 2010 at 7:18 pm
Strange that a few months ago I’d blocked Cafe World as I was quite inactive (was busy!) as well as a friend complained that dormant owners are slowing down the server. Now, I’m trying to reopen business in Cafe World & there’s no way I could do it. Strange, that this application has bore a grudge against me & whatever link to Cafe World seems invisible to me & I’ve no access to it!! How unfair!! I’d blocked Mafia Wars & some other applications & reopened them recently & they’ve been no problems at all!!!
February 26th, 2010 at 11:53 am
can anyone help. a while back i deleted my cafe. I have now decided to re-install it and the only computer i cant use it on is the one i deleted it on which is the one i want to play it on. I can send gifts and use the other tabs but when i click on the ‘play’ tab its just blank. can anyone help pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease
March 2nd, 2010 at 3:44 pm
I need help getting back on Cafe World I can’t receive things from friends on cafe world how can my game be restored the message that I am getting is that it has been currently suspended why is that cafe world is one of my favorite games to play on face book I would like to be able to play cafe world again.
March 4th, 2010 at 6:29 am
I need help getting back on Cafe World it’s seem like I have been shut out. After working hard and putting so much effort into this game, I deserve a chance to continue playing and meeting goals that i had set for myself. among all my friend I was the lead and it looks like all of that hard work is being taking away.
March 5th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
I created a cafe world guide that contains all that I have learned so far. I have a dishes guide that can be sorted by and coulumn and filtered by you level. It really helps you level up quick. I am at level 64 already.
http://cafeworld.invantix.com
Bon Apetite!
March 7th, 2010 at 8:24 am
can anyone help. I can send gifts and use the other tabs but when i click on the ‘play’ tab its just blank. can anyone help pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease
March 10th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
wowwie
March 15th, 2010 at 9:07 am
كيف اتسجل خارج الفيس بوك
March 15th, 2010 at 9:08 am
ها