Facebook and Zynga to end close relationship | Hacker News Reader

Facebook and Zynga to end close relationship

bbc.co.uk

54 pointsanons201132 comments

This is a flesh wound for Facebook, but IMO will probably be lethal for Zynga. Without the "virality" (read: spamming) offered by Facebook their games have no hope of any sustainable user base.

They can pivot into actual casual games (a la Popcap), but that space is already crowded and Zynga has no real advantage over anyone else, and plenty of disadvantages.

This doesn't change that much for Zynga, they've known for a while that it's mobile or bust for them, and all their acquisitions and movements show they've bet entirely on that.

Agree, Facebook will easily recover but Zynga has a bigger blow to deal with. Already shows by their stock value dropping 13%.

Could this turn out to be the nail in Zynga's coffin? Seems like investors are getting cold feet, staff reductions, and a general malaise seems to surround the brand. Losing that access as a key partner to Facebook and becoming just another user is going to force them to make very rapid changes to adapt.

They still have options to open up for other platforms

IMO the "general malaise" you and I feel is the minority opinion held by technically-savvy people. The 90% of Facebook users who are not could care less. The trick now will be whether Zynga can transition from the unlimited access to casual users of Facebook to their own, or other gaming communities, where those audiences will be much more discriminating.

The general malaise more effects them in terms of recruiting talent, it'd be a rare occasion that a top developer would go work for a company circling the drain. Whether Zynga needs top developers I suppose is the question.

I think the nail in the coffin was the last quarterly report. At this point Zynga is priced right around the liquidation value of the company. Nowhere to go but up (or out of business)!

Long Zynga 2014 calls in the hope they pull off a miracle of online gambling.

Somehow online gambling seems like a great fit for Zynga.

Huge fit but with massively regulatory oversight, so they'd be at the whims of the regulators.

Admittedly so, but Vegas casinos seem to thrive under a similar regulatory climate.

Last report was bad and will have scared investors but this isn't just investment market, this is core business. Being the partner could still keep them afloat, now? They're back to fighting with other teams.

I name this Praziquantel Day.

(Praziquantel is a drug used to kill tapeworms.)

This is very, very good for Facebook. They are upgrading their brand and image by doing this.

The major reason Google+ Games did not succeed is that preferential treatment was given to mainstream developers (e.g. Zynga) who didn't expect us to thrive and therefore gave us their second-string stuff, as opposed to indie developers who would value us and the access we could offer them and give us a very high (brand-defining) level of quality. Having raised this issue, and having proposed an alternative strategy that would have worked exceedingly well, is the major reason I am no longer at Google.

Facebook gave preferential treatment to Zynga too, so that can't be the reason Google+ Games did not succeed. Perhaps it is more relevant that Google+ is not widely used and those who do use it are less likely to be into things like Farmville (demographics).

To beat an incumbent, you have to be superior.

Facebook gave preferential treatment to Zynga only after they proved that they were the most popular. They had to fight their way there - it didn't start that way. It's still a bit dangerous to do so though because users' tastes may change, so good on Facebook for removing their special status.

As you said, Google+ had no such information, and gave companies special status out the gate before proving their popularity. If Facebook did the same thing, their top apps would probably look a lot different.

I had completely forgotten about Google+ Games... Are there numbers on how many people are playing games on Google+?

I'm a little confused as to who exactly "us" refers to in your post, could you clarify please? "We" as generic consumers, "we" as developers, other?

Google+ users / generic consumers.

> having proposed an alternative strategy that would have worked exceedingly well

Indeed! I, too, have proposed numerous alternative strategies to many people which would have worked exceeding well had they been implemented.

It's really frustrating to watch people persist in ideas they know are bad just to keep rank.

I can't see how this isn't the death knell from Zynga. Maybe I am missing something, but Zynga loses all their mass appeal. Maybe there is a self contained group that runs under the radar screen at their site, but they lose much of the social connection.

Facebook can find other game makers. There is no other Facebook for Zynga. Facebook also gets rid of some unwanted Spam.

They could just resort to actual email spam, would anyone put it past them?

They would if it worked, but email spam is mostly solved these days. Everyone uses a spam filter.

I was thinking more along the lines of "get 100 credits in this game by giving us your gmail password/control over outlook so we can send to people in your contacts list" rather than outright blind spamming.

I imagine that GMail, Yahoo, AOL, and all of the major email providers would slam that door shut pretty quickly. Much faster than Facebook closed the door on inter-friend spam.

After all, a webmail provider gets nothing from such behavior, and it represent a giant security liability.

One could wish. I'm still getting spam from linkedin and couple of others "social networks" (badoo and similars) even after reporting every email from them as spam.

Facebook is also enforcing new terms for its developers: From December on, applications that run on external domains instead of appearing as an iframe inside facebook will be severely restricted in their access to facebook[1]. This move is supposed to force indie developers to move their games to facebook where they can't use AdSense (it's not allowed by facebook) and can only use facebook's own payments system (it's mandatory).

Zynga could have used this 2 year time window to grow an independent social gaming network, but they failed to do so. It was inevitable that this would happen.

[1] https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2012/09/05/platfor...

My reading is that those restrictions are only for games off Facebook, not all applications. Interesting that they would make that distinction.

Best for both, and it will release zynga from FB exclusivity agreement. Facebook's platform and business has changed dramatically in the past 24 mos. And zynga can focus on growth on other platforms in addition to maintaining a presence on Facebook.

So in the article they say "Zynga's stock fell 13% on the news" - my first reaction was how can you go 13% below zero?. Is that wrong? (actual drop was $.17 since they are trading at $2.50)

>>> Zynga now has its own games platform, but players will no longer be able to share their progress on Facebook.

Isn't every app allowed to share certain things on a user's FB page? Why wouldn't this be possible for Zynga games?

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