Zynga-Facebook Relationship On The Rocks?
Posted on 13. May, 2010 by Vivek Krishnan in Internet Entrepreneurs
Are Zynga and Facebook going through a rough patch in their mutually profitable relationship? We all know about the Apple-Adobe divorce – but now the internet is buzzing with this news about Zynga and Facebook calling it quits.
Zynga is the developer of the very addictive games like Farmville, Mafia Wars, YoVille etc. The biggest game partners for Facebook – has 82.4 million active users – this is the number of players who are very active and play it on a regular basis. Apparently, Zynga plans to start its own social gaming site called Zynga Live. This news was apparently delivered to Tech Crunch by an anonymouss top official from Zynga.
The reason for this fall out is apparently the 30% charge that Facebook levies on Zynga whenever one spends money Farmville credits or Mafia War credits to buy decorations and such for their game. Rumors state that Zynga plans to move away from Facebook to keep the whole revenue for itself.
Facebook and Zynga had been negotiating on Facebook Credits and the talks turned for the worst. As the relationship soured, Facebook threatened to shut off Zynga’s feed and to shut down games. In retaliation Zynga has begun preparation to move out completely from Facebook – may be even in the upcoming weeks. And Zynga CEO Mark Pincus talked about the plans of launching Zynga Live.
If it is considered for a moment, then does Zynga really think the 82.4 million active users will move over to play at Zynga live. I doubt it. The partial reason for the success of games like Farmville and Mafia Wars is that it allows players to co-ordinate with their friends as “neighbors” – and players enjoy the integration of their close friends in their game. If Zynga independently hosts its social gaming site – I very much doubt whether the user base will follow them over to this new website.
At the same time, it is hard to avoid the fact that Zynga games have in fact been one of the key reasons why Facebook has been able to get so many page views. Many users log in to their Facebook account only because they want to take care of their farms or run their Mafia family.
You can read more at TechCrunch.
How do you think that this move will affect either of the two internet companies?
9 Responses to “Zynga-Facebook Relationship On The Rocks?”
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2010/05/13
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TC
13. May, 2010
It’s a toss up as to how many will follow over to a private site. I know I won’t be if they are charging (what the current rumor is) per month, etc AND the other rumor is that everyone is at level 1 again.
WHAT about the THOUSANDS of $$ that FB users have paid in for weapons/Godfather points/etc – are the users going to be able to get that refunded to them somehow. OR are those goodies going to transfer over to the new site?
Some say: there is NO way it will happen. PLUS those on MySpace and tagged.com already were booted off those sites and brought to FB in the last month alone, now they have to RE-start restarting?
.. well I may like my ‘addiction’ but I won’t travel for it and I’ve paid in enough $ to be royally pissed off about the whole situ. Buyer beware, eh?
Vivek
13. May, 2010
@TC – In my opinion if ZYnga breaks free of FB, the attrition loss of players will be too high. It will impact Zynga more than it will affect FB.
Shabnam Sultan
13. May, 2010
I do play farmville in FB . If Zinga breaks free then i won’t be going Zynga plus to play
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.-= Shabnam Sultan´s last blog ..WordPress Evermore plugin to show short previews of post in homepage =-.
Vivek
13. May, 2010
@Shabnam- Like you there are many others who simply wont play Zynga games without FB!
Arafat Hossain Piyada
14. May, 2010
To me people will go the new site when there is no alternative but interestingly Facebook have alternatives and if Zynga move other alternative will spend their money to promote their services definitely.
.-= Arafat Hossain Piyada´s last blog ..Download Portal (Game) Free on Steam for both Windows & Mac =-.
Vivek
14. May, 2010
@Arafat- Definitely, Zynga will have new costs to pay if they are starting up independently. Money for promotion is one cost.
Shiva | Web Magazine
14. May, 2010
I really do not think that people will move over to Zynga Live to play the games. The ones that moves will be the one who have paid for the credits and things. But that is if the Zynga Facebook break up happens
.-= Shiva | Web Magazine´s last blog ..Facebook: Facts that You Probably Didn’t Know =-.
Vivek
14. May, 2010
@Shiva- I seriously doubt whether Zynga and Facebook are going to break up. Most probably they will work out the differences.