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Interview with Zynga CEO Mark Pincus on Social Gaming in 2010
December 29th, 2009
| By Eric Eldon | 30 Comments » |
Veteran entrepreneur Mark Pincus has had a huge year. His company, Zynga, went from being one of several relatively small social gaming companies on Facebook’s developer platform to clearly take the lead in terms of users — and, from what many people hear, revenue.
With a raw total of 230 million monthly active users and nearly 60 million daily active users on Facebook alone, it is many times larger than its nearest rivals, according to AppData. These numbers do not include the company’s games on other platforms, like MySpace and the iPhone.
Based primarily on the sale of virtual goods within games like virtual farm game FarmVille, the company will likely do at least $200 million in revenues this calendar year, according to our estimates, and revenue growth is looking very strong as we enter 2010.
And, earlier this month, the company closed a $180 million round of funding, in part to let employees sell stock. The signs, more than ever, point to an initial public offering, even though the company and our sources insist this is not likely to happen any time soon.
Pincus and his company have also faced a fair amount of criticism. The company, like most others on Facebook, has aggressively used viral channels, like notifications, to reach users. Due to Facebook’s recent policy enforcement actions, the holidays, and whatever else, the company has recently seen a slight dip in traffic. Earlier this fall, Zynga was heavily criticized for running scammy advertising offers within its games; it pulled all offers, temporarily, while it ensures that it can cleanly run this revenue stream.
2009 has been a big and dramatic year for social gaming, and Pincus has been in the middle of it all. Here are his thoughts on the coming year.
Inside Social Games: Despite the massive growth that Zynga and other social games have seen this past year, the last couple of weeks have seen slower growth. What do you think is going on here?
Mark Pincus: It feels like the industry is taking a breather. Maybe users are, too. It seems like our games and the rest of the industry have more or less been flatlining quite recently. We’ve been in this position before — holidays have been down or flat every year. But I watch things on a daily and weekly basis, and this month everything is still growing.
Our goal had been to get to 12 million daily active users by the end of the year, after starting at 5 million — we’re ending with around 65 million. Obviously, we underestimated how big it would get.
ISG: So what are your plans for next year? What game mechanics do you plan to add? What sort of new game genres do you plan to get into?
MP: As we look forward to next year, we know every quarter, every year the stakes get higher. The level of quality, the level of socialness has to go up.
When we think about next year, we know we have to double down on social. We want to deliver, we know whole industry has to deliver way more on the promise. A very social experience already occurs in and around our games, but mainly outside.
I feel that social gaming today is where Friendster was at the beginning. Yes, it was popular, but people didn’t use it, they talked around it. You went to bar and talked about it. But the amount of interaction inside wasn’t that high. Facebook took it to next level, with features like pokes, the news feeds, the wall for user profiles. Communication with your network was on the network.
I think that social gaming is in a similar place. In the next year to two years, it needs to be more about real user interaction and communication inside of the gaming experience. Today, its very hard to communicate with friends in FarmVille, but people talk about it at the bar, in dorms, on Facebook, and everywhere else. In 2010, they should talk about it in FarmVille.
While there are some ways to communicate already, I’m just saying we haven’t made it low friction.
ISG: Do you plan to continue supporting your big older titles like Mafia Wars and Zynga Poker (Texas Hold’Em)?
MP: Yes. They’re still here, and bigger than they were a year go. We’ve continued to develop those and innovate those games. We’re going to keep developing what exists, as well as building new ones. We’ll keep investing in franchise games while experimenting.
ISG: What sort of game mechanics do you plan to introduce. A lot of your simulation games this year featured asynchronous game play, even though your earlier titles, like Poker, were synchronous. What’s next?
MP: I think there’s a continued trend towards greater simplicity. We learned that lesson this year. While our games are more accessible than hardcore games, nobody realized making them more simple would unlock more users. Nobody would guess that one of most popular categories would be fish swimming around in a bowl.
I would be shocked if it didn’t get even more simple. I think we’re seeing new games that are pushing the envelope more in terms of production value in flash, the level of interactivity, the juiciness….
But this is a big question for 2010. Tadgh Kelly has the best-articulated criticism from the gaming industry about the future of social gaming — and Zynga [ed. here]. His thesis is that none of these are real games. Real games, as he sees them, are more along the lines of first-person shooters or strategy games. He believes users will graduate to more complex game mechanics, more like what you see in traditional games. That’s a great question for the year — we should talk this time next year and see what has happened.
ISG: How have you already tried answering this question in terms of products?
MP: We’ve continued to bring more sophisticated mechanics into our games. In FarmVille, we created buildings that mattered: chicken coops, dairy farms, etc. and designed more of the game around them. These are somewhat popular, but not everyone in the game figures them out. It’s a trade-off.
Sophistication loses many players. But maybe someone will show us how to do it in a more sophisticated way.
All types of player groups continue to expand ever week. We’ll try and see where users are willing to go. So far, feel that 2009, where answer was that simplicity sells. We would all like to think that complexity is great, but we haven’t proven it yet. Do we want to be raising the water level an inch for everybody or a foot for 10% of the players.
We tend to stay more in our mass market games like FarmVille and try to raise them an inch. It’s very hard to introduce more complexity. You don’t know which 10% of users want which mechanic. It’s not our model to aim at 10%. We’re still at the growth stage. It might eventually be interesting to segment and try to build deeper games for smaller groups. But we want large group memes.
ISG: What do you think about the pending arrival of the Civilization series on Facebook? What about Electronic Arts/Playfish introducing a title like The Sims?
MP: I’m sure EA/Playfish will try to see if one of its big titles will cross over. This will be interesting for the whole industry to watch.
ISG: But this is not where you’re headed?
MP: I can’t predict the world more than a quarter out. It’s not obvious to me today. But they’re playing with a different hand. If I were them I’d be trying to do different things.
ISG: So what are the other big trends that you expect to continue playing out in social gaming? What about direct payments? Offers — which we’ve heard Zynga is bringing back soon? Ads?
MP: I think the big trend is that it will continue to be users paying where they see value. There’s a lot of opportunity for game developers to show value to people, things they want to spend money on. I think offers are just another kind of ads. For some users, they’re a replacement for spending money directly. I think offers and ads are always going to be an add-on on top of payments. I dont think they’ll ever come close to the power of direct user payments.
I said this to you a year ago [ed. here]. The big story is user payments, even though a lot of grown-ups find this hard to believe.
[Photo via The New York Times]
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December 30th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Zynga is a rip-off. They do not resolve customers issues,even paying customers. They promise things and never deliver. Their support center is a joke. None of the agents can actually solve anything. They are just raking in the cash from unsuspecting customers and their advertisers.
January 1st, 2010 at 6:09 am
[...] social game topics, I highly recommend reading Tadhg Kelly’s inciteful post on Gamasutra and Eric Eldon’s interview with Mark Pincus on InsideSocialGames.com // January 1st, 2010 | Tags: Electronic Arts, Game Mechanics, Zynga | [...]
January 1st, 2010 at 9:42 am
I would have to agree. Support only offers “canned” responses to trouble calls. We are organizing a mass email to Zynga AND their advertisers to see why our concerns are not addressed. Maybe several thousand emails will get their attention. This “connection error” is way past old! Great game, support is terrible!
January 1st, 2010 at 10:52 am
Why don’t you respond to users questions on your games. I played rck but got frustrated when it stopped at level 25. Now it will hardly load.
This is why your traffic is down; not the holidays.
People want to play not just sit there in freeze mode. Make your games more basic. The hand? Whoever came up with that should be grilling hamburgers at McDonalds; Certainly put a great
block on the game. If you really care about your future income, be a man and answer questions and
fix your games so at least they are playable.
January 1st, 2010 at 7:21 pm
I left several reports with not only facebook but only after zynga and/or farmville wouldn’t respond to my complaint of possible fraudulent activity. My next step if it is not addressed is to file a complaint with the FBI under the Internet Fraud division. When you pay for a service or book or information and you don’t receive it yet they cash your check or money order. That is considered FRAUD punishable by law. In this case, since it was sent out of state and within the boundries of the U.S. IT WILL BE CORRECTED on their end.
January 1st, 2010 at 7:28 pm
What I was talking about prior is that you have this bot at address (clickbank.net) imbedded into Farmvilles emblems.You cant delete it unless you delete farmville totally, and only on zynga can you find it. The owner of this APP has 54 other pages added to different apps throughout all the games that Zynga and others have to offer. Just go to Facebook and it will bring up his Pic and he claims to be a manager of Farville….www.farmvillemanager.com is what he has listed on it.
January 2nd, 2010 at 3:02 pm
[...] 美国同样有游戏公司靠朝用户收费窜红：zynga。在 Facebook 用免费游戏加虚拟物品销售，把销售额迅速做到了上亿美金。（但是他的用户直接付费占营收的比率没有 Gree 那么高。） [...]
January 3rd, 2010 at 8:09 pm
[...] Interview with Zynga CEO Mark Pincus on Social Gaming in 2009 [...]
January 5th, 2010 at 8:51 am
[...] chief executive Mark Pincus laid out his thoughts on this year in an interview with us from late last month. He emphasized that Zynga is going to try [...]
January 5th, 2010 at 9:27 am
would it be possiable for you too alphabitize our mafia’s at least by first name and install a search bar in mafia wars, so that we can find apecific players easier, without haveing to go page by page , some people have several hundred pages to go though inorder to find one mafia member.
Thank You,
Jim
January 6th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
[...] At the other end of the spectrum, Zynga’s aggressive promotion and give-aways appear to be buying it time while it tries to figure out how to revive and develop new viral mechanics – a luxury afforded by the recent influx of investment that most other developers can’t match – as well as figure out what game mechanics to develop next. [...]
January 6th, 2010 at 10:27 pm
Maybe it would be nice to play Mafia Wars and actually know what you are doing. For going on three months my game has had issues, You dont have gifts from that preson, you have already helped on that job, white screens, and the list goes on and on. I like the game but you make it so hard to play. I play almost BLIND every day I have E mailed support only to have them tell me that their working on it, pfffft sure you are, I have called three times an had no help only “I’ve noted it and I will give it to our tech support. is their a support? If you don’t wish to fix my game play just refund my money. I’ll go play cards with My Dog…. Come on Mark You can do better than that..
January 8th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
All i like to say to mr ceo of zynga his full of bull dust about his poker site its called pay play and have your acc closed and dont complain to them as no one will reply iam from australia so they have taken over 25m chips of me cold cash paid to buy them they dont give a F**k about us after so F**K there site as well they are criminals only yank ones and they know it too we have no law to recover our chips from this criminal poker site thank you.
January 10th, 2010 at 2:26 am
[...] Intervista a Mark Pincus, CEO di Zynga: [...]
January 14th, 2010 at 9:09 am
I have a brother-in-law from Norway who lives in Omaha, NE. Who could design anything you wanted. His thesis was so involved that to grade it they had to bring in outside professors. He works for the Hyatt and has saved them millions by using his programs. His name is Geir Rosoy. You might want to look at him.
January 15th, 2010 at 8:39 am
why do you take my chips of me shared with father take 15 mill then 12 mill why my computer runs on mobile phone line keeps going down crash in middle of card when my chips are in looose when winning hands chips stay in the middle then crash lose all the time so we share me and father lap and tower then you say warning put e mail here then chips gone you think that is fair if i buy billions you would take them as well good deat zynga onee load of crap start to finish why not take all my points on cafe world lil farm all the games take thhe lot you be happy then send me e mail wont you just ignore everything wat do you want blood have that as well sick man take enjoyment of me not me its the bloody net work will you give me chips back when com keeps going down no way
January 18th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
Zynga is Bad on Customer Support. The Final answer is “Sorry The Game is Beta”
January 18th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
have had a problem adding mafia fiends to play,reluctant to buy more gifts as it’s frustrating waitng on this fix for months….please have team to fix…problem is on all my computers.It say add sent,but they never recieve and names are adding up in my request to add friends box…Please help so I can play mafia wars with all my friens that can;t be added.please pass this on to Mark Pincus as I think this stops Zynga from making more money…Sincerely Alvin L Bowen
February 1st, 2010 at 8:20 am
[...] social games saw traffic stagnate or fall in December due to the usual holiday decline, if not new Facebook platform policy changes. This past month has seen some [...]
February 1st, 2010 at 8:22 am
[...] social games saw traffic stagnate or fall in December due to the usual holiday decline, if not new Facebook platform policy changes. This past month has seen some [...]
February 3rd, 2010 at 12:33 pm
JOIN ALL IN THIS GROYP OF BOYCOTAZ–BOYCOTT FROM THE GREEK YOUSERS IN FACEBOOK IN<>
February 5th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
I think your support system is a big joke and I am having a problem with farmville, I cannot accept gifts as it tells me my gift box is full, when it is empty. The response I go blames facebook and Beta. Is that my problem????
I need this sorted out as I have given a lot of money to Zynga at a 7 to 1 exchange rate. I play fairyland, bingo, all which I have given money to.
February 8th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
how to open my accuont if it have banned from zynga??
February 15th, 2010 at 12:03 am
hi.. marc.. im hacked by someone else.. now.. around 10 am to 12 am.. my chips is 107m.. in poker.. ill report already to zynga support.. please help me.. marc pincus
February 27th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Dear Mr. Pincus,
I have been hacked not once, but twice in less than a week. I reported the first hack and the
chips were restored. The amount of the chips
restored was 20 Million.
Not even a week later, boom, i got hit again this time with 23 Million hacked and I purchased
$50 worth to get 1 Million and that even gone.
I went from 23 Mil, 11:30 PM 2/22/10 to 18K , 10:AM 2/2310 EST. I earned each and everyone of my chips and feel that I am being treated unfairly as is this was my fault. I did everyhting they told me to do after the first Hack and again it happened. I feel that your site is not secured enough and very upset that they are not restoring my chips again for 23 Million. I would appreciate an answer back from you or someone that is in charge. I have left my phone number with the mails that contain my incident number.
I would appreciate my chips be restored as I don’t care if I was hacked multiple times until
your company somehow provides a more secure way
of not getting hacked in free chips.
February 27th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Dear Mr. Pincus,
I meant to say that this was NOT MY FAULT, and that i feel i am being treated unfarily
as i did report the second incident as soon
as it happened.
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:37 am
[...] Christmas traffic decline has melted away, and a number of games saw significant growth in February — more so than [...]
March 2nd, 2010 at 11:42 am
[...] The Christmas traffic decline has melted away, and a number of games saw significant growth in February — more so than January, anyway. However, for each significant gain, there were some loses as well, as roughly one-third of the list dropped in monthly active users, and a few of those drops are highly popular titles such as FishVille and Happy Aquarium. [...]
March 6th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
I meant to say that this was NOT MY FAULT, and that i feel i am being treated unfarily
as i did report the second incident as soon
as it happened.
I agree
March 6th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
Whilst fighting in mafia wars i recieved a chop shop item (x10). i went to use it to upgrade to 2nd level and after pressing button the x10 had gone and i had to remain on level one. another problem i had was after levelling up i did not recieve godfather point