Zynga has certainly prospered with Facebook gaming, but their methods of doing so have been openly criticized. PopCap Games CEO Dave Roberts can be added to the list of people who is not a fan of Zynga.
“They are in some ways struggling to catch up because they are not (about) gaming in their heritage — they are a marketing company. They are a media company,” said Roberts at the WTIA TechNW forum. “They are awfully good at it. But we believe that ultimately, and it’s our bias, that great content wins out. And that great games are always going to be better than great marketing.”
Roberts also noted that PopCap’s Bejeweled Blitz was doing better than Zynga’s Mafia Wars in terms of daily unique visitors without spending any money on advertising. “Zynga is really good at sort of using money to buy their customers every day,” he added. “…That’s an interesting business model, but [it] becomes complicated.”
He noted that there was a particular challenge in bringing Bejeweled Blitz to Facebook, but he said that PopCap has gotten used to adapting to new platforms. By contrast, Roberts said that Zynga’s attempt to bring FarmVille to iPhone was an “abysmal failure.”
“I think a lot of the easy money that catapulted companies like Zynga into this crazy stratosphere — the easy money days are gone,” said Roberts. “That doesn’t mean the platform is dead, it just means that you actually now have to work at it. Now, it is not about luck, it is about good, old-fashioned hard work.”
Source: TechFlash
