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I really don't feel sorry for anyone who work(s)(ed) for Zynga. This company milked the whole "social gaming" bubble for every drop it was worth. Every game th

I really don't feel sorry for anyone who work(s)(ed) for Zynga. This company milked the whole "social gaming" bubble for every drop it was worth. Every game they made was a clone of this or that, and they used every spam trick in the book to get more clicks, and every single employee at that company knew 100% full well that they were part of a modern day ponzi scheme that would blow up once Facebook become uncool.

sjsivak 13y ago
This is so incredibly wrong in so many ways. Many developers were seduced into social games because people loved them and it seemed like a new frontier and a new market with shorter development cycles and interesting challenges. It is easy to have great hindsight but a few years ago the game industry looked very different. Zynga has had a few games be reviewed quite well, but nobody ever seems to remember them.[1][2] As a former Zynga employee that came in through acquisition, I find it repulsive that people assume we are all responsible for the poor decisions of a few at the top. Most of us worked our asses off to try to make something awesome, but ended up having to compromise in the worst possible ways to satisfy the top brass or poorly understood metrics. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/31/zynga-channels-settlers-of-catan-in-new-social-combat-game-empires-allies-debuts-in-12-languages/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/31/zynga-channels-settlers-of-... [2] http://kotaku.com/5836588/adventure-world-is-zyngas-take-on-tomb-raider++and-another-step-toward-real-games http://kotaku.com/5836588/adventure-world-is-zyngas-take-on-...
- shadowmint 13y ago
  It's easy to say 'Oh sure, I work for the Evil Empire, but my division makes interesting things which people actually quite like...' ...but then you've got to be prepared to take it on the chin when someone says, "Yes, but that whole company is Evil, which, kind of by association includes you." When you work for someone, their reputation does, absolutely, 100% reflect on you personally regardless of what your role in the company is (to some degree, obviously). Just food for thought. If you don't like it, don't work for people you don't want your personal reputation associated with.
  - jmduke 13y ago
    When you work for someone, their reputation does, absolutely, 100% reflect on you personally regardless of what your role in the company is (to some degree, obviously). I don't understand this rationale at all. You are not your company. Calling someone evil because you dislike their company (I'm not defending Zynga, but they're the #firstworldproblems of "evil") is incredibly sophomoric.
    - shadowmint 13y ago
      Perhaps. ...but I think you're fooling yourself if you think this doesn't happen in the real world.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      You've basically got a very mild variation on the Wernher Von Braun thing going on here. Engineer of prolific impact and talent, working for the worst possible people, indirectly exploiting people in the worse possible way to do shit work that is related to his pure and commendable goals and interests. The engineer feels as though he is powerless to resist the the exploitation that is demanded by his employer. Eventually the bad guy employers go down in flames to everyone's delight, but the engineer still has the technical chops to make himself valued. The question, does the previous employer reflect poorly on the engineer? To be honest, Von Braun is one of those ambiguous figures in history for me. I don't really know how I feel about him. However, the fact that he is ambiguous at all means that I have to admit to myself that his affiliations during the war do tarnish what I think of him. I don't think it is possible for that not to be the case. Ex-Zynga software engineer? Obviously the ambiguity is not going to be "is this guy a war criminal or not?" But would there be any ambiguity of any sort? Yeah, I think for me there would be. I don't think an engineer of any caliber is evaluated in a vacuum, past employers shape how we view them, for better or worse. This (particularly how I feel about Von Braun) is something I have thought about hard in the past when considering what I want to do as an engineer.
      - ryguytilidie 13y ago
        I know Mark Pincus is a pretty big dick, but "worst possible people"? Come on.
- rhizome 13y ago
  Those compromises helped this story get written: http://www.sfgate.com/news/slideshow/Mark-Pincus-039-16M-Pacific-Heights-home-62856.php http://www.sfgate.com/news/slideshow/Mark-Pincus-039-16M-Pac...
- dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  I hear what you are saying but it is NOT simply hindsight. Many of us from the beginning were very critical of sort of games developed by Zynga, it is definitely not a case of looking back. This is not to say that all the developers were there to rip off previous games and create digital crack but Zynga is what it is and we did say it from the beginning.
jmduke 13y ago
I think this as a terrible way to look at people and the world. People need jobs to provide for themselves and their family. Social gaming isn't a "ponzi scheme" -- you can think its a waste of time, you can think Zynga's corporate policies were bad, but at the end of the day a bunch of people who just wanted to make money building things just lost their jobs.
- quaunaut 13y ago
  I'm not so sure they deserve the sympathy though. Nearly every game released for the past several years has been a literal clone of another game- usually so wholesale, so completely devoid of any innovation or new content, that it was indistinguishable to the lay man. When you're literally being told to copy another company to create your product, so brashly? You honestly deserve what's coming to you. I'm okay if you try to innovate at least a little, but they never did. They just used their platform and size to bully smaller companies(and sometimes, stupidly, larger companies like EA) into irrelevance.
  - cle 13y ago
    I'm tempted to agree with you. "They're just trying to support their family" can only be an acceptable excuse up to a point. I don't know if Zynga reached that point or not. I just think it's important to keep in mind that you can only do so much evil before "providing for your family" is no longer a valid excuse. Of course, this all sounds ridiculous in comparison to "real" evil, like mass murder. So I'm also tempted to disagree ;).
- pandaman 13y ago
  Zynga has poached a lot of talent from the real game industry. People don't need to resign and join Zynga - it's a choice they've made. And with the requirements Zynga had - even if you had been unemployed and got an offer from Zynga you could get another one everywhere else: they had not been exactly scrapping the bottom of the barrel, quite the opposite.
  - heliotron 13y ago
lsc 13y ago
>they were part of a modern day ponzi scheme that would blow up once Facebook become uncool. but isn't this like 80% of silicon valley, at this point? I mean even google is now trying to become facebook; and the rest of us are just trying to get acquired by one of the giants, or trying to sell something to the Engineers who are in one of those groups. I mean, seriously, glass houses; be careful with them rocks.
- wutbrodo 13y ago
  What? Even assuming that Google is trying to become Facebook and that everyone is "trying to get acquired", why do those situations preclude trying to create something that you believe has actual value (vs the complete, blatant ripoffs and spammy crap that Zynga pushes). You're free to disagree that Zynga's games _are_ spammy ripoffs, but you didn't seem to take issue with that part of the parent comment's post, and saying that the rest of the Valley is engaged in the same behavior is downright silly.
  - lsc 13y ago
    >Even assuming that Google is trying to become Facebook and that everyone is "trying to get acquired", why do those situations preclude trying to create something that you believe has actual value[?] well, assuming you honestly believe that facebook creates enough real value to justify it's valuation, sure, you are right. My take on the matter is that it's myspace 2.0. I mean, no question, it's worth something, but not nearly what it's valued at right now. I personally have a very difficult time believing that anyone who was working in the industry during the first dot-com can honestly believe that facebook is a sustainable business. The only people I know who honestly espouse the view that facebook is fairly valued are facebook employees. (Interestingly, I know no facebook employees who were working during the first dot com.) I mean, maybe these people all really believe exactly what their paymasters want them to believe? Personally, I find that thought far more creepy than the idea that they are just faking it because that's what the employer requires. Certainly there is some selection effect; you are more likely to apply for a facebook job if you believe the company is going somewhere? but it's weird. I remember one guy who is probably the staunchest facebook advocate I know now, he was extremely cynical about facebook before he got the job. Of course, he's also pretty young, too young to have worked through the first dot-com. The weird thing is that I know a bunch of people who work for defense contractors, too... a place where you'd expect a certain level of brainwashing. None of those people believe their companies are doing good things for the world. Not one. I mean, they generally think the work is really interesting, but they don't believe at all in the end goals. (and I do have some conservative friends... it's just that none of them work for defense contractors.) But then, what do I know? I find that what I consider to be 'spammy crap' is a pretty good heuristic for what most people want. I don't use facebook because it consists almost entirely of what I would call spammy crap. Spammy crap and baby pictures.

sjsivak 13y ago

This is so incredibly wrong in so many ways. Many developers were seduced into social games because people loved them and it seemed like a new frontier and a new market with shorter development cycles and interesting challenges. It is easy to have great hindsight but a few years ago the game industry looked very different. Zynga has had a few games be reviewed quite well, but nobody ever seems to remember them.[1][2] As a former Zynga employee that came in through acquisition, I find it repulsive that people assume we are all responsible for the poor decisions of a few at the top. Most of us worked our asses off to try to make something awesome, but ended up having to compromise in the worst possible ways to satisfy the top brass or poorly understood metrics. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/31/zynga-channels-settlers-of-catan-in-new-social-combat-game-empires-allies-debuts-in-12-languages/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/31/zynga-channels-settlers-of-... [2] http://kotaku.com/5836588/adventure-world-is-zyngas-take-on-tomb-raider++and-another-step-toward-real-games http://kotaku.com/5836588/adventure-world-is-zyngas-take-on-...

shadowmint 13y ago
It's easy to say 'Oh sure, I work for the Evil Empire, but my division makes interesting things which people actually quite like...' ...but then you've got to be prepared to take it on the chin when someone says, "Yes, but that whole company is Evil, which, kind of by association includes you." When you work for someone, their reputation does, absolutely, 100% reflect on you personally regardless of what your role in the company is (to some degree, obviously). Just food for thought. If you don't like it, don't work for people you don't want your personal reputation associated with.
- jmduke 13y ago
  When you work for someone, their reputation does, absolutely, 100% reflect on you personally regardless of what your role in the company is (to some degree, obviously). I don't understand this rationale at all. You are not your company. Calling someone evil because you dislike their company (I'm not defending Zynga, but they're the #firstworldproblems of "evil") is incredibly sophomoric.
  - shadowmint 13y ago
    Perhaps. ...but I think you're fooling yourself if you think this doesn't happen in the real world.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    You've basically got a very mild variation on the Wernher Von Braun thing going on here. Engineer of prolific impact and talent, working for the worst possible people, indirectly exploiting people in the worse possible way to do shit work that is related to his pure and commendable goals and interests. The engineer feels as though he is powerless to resist the the exploitation that is demanded by his employer. Eventually the bad guy employers go down in flames to everyone's delight, but the engineer still has the technical chops to make himself valued. The question, does the previous employer reflect poorly on the engineer? To be honest, Von Braun is one of those ambiguous figures in history for me. I don't really know how I feel about him. However, the fact that he is ambiguous at all means that I have to admit to myself that his affiliations during the war do tarnish what I think of him. I don't think it is possible for that not to be the case. Ex-Zynga software engineer? Obviously the ambiguity is not going to be "is this guy a war criminal or not?" But would there be any ambiguity of any sort? Yeah, I think for me there would be. I don't think an engineer of any caliber is evaluated in a vacuum, past employers shape how we view them, for better or worse. This (particularly how I feel about Von Braun) is something I have thought about hard in the past when considering what I want to do as an engineer.
    - ryguytilidie 13y ago
      I know Mark Pincus is a pretty big dick, but "worst possible people"? Come on.
rhizome 13y ago
Those compromises helped this story get written: http://www.sfgate.com/news/slideshow/Mark-Pincus-039-16M-Pacific-Heights-home-62856.php http://www.sfgate.com/news/slideshow/Mark-Pincus-039-16M-Pac...
dinkumthinkum 13y ago
I hear what you are saying but it is NOT simply hindsight. Many of us from the beginning were very critical of sort of games developed by Zynga, it is definitely not a case of looking back. This is not to say that all the developers were there to rip off previous games and create digital crack but Zynga is what it is and we did say it from the beginning.

jmduke 13y ago

I think this as a terrible way to look at people and the world. People need jobs to provide for themselves and their family. Social gaming isn't a "ponzi scheme" -- you can think its a waste of time, you can think Zynga's corporate policies were bad, but at the end of the day a bunch of people who just wanted to make money building things just lost their jobs.

quaunaut 13y ago
I'm not so sure they deserve the sympathy though. Nearly every game released for the past several years has been a literal clone of another game- usually so wholesale, so completely devoid of any innovation or new content, that it was indistinguishable to the lay man. When you're literally being told to copy another company to create your product, so brashly? You honestly deserve what's coming to you. I'm okay if you try to innovate at least a little, but they never did. They just used their platform and size to bully smaller companies(and sometimes, stupidly, larger companies like EA) into irrelevance.
- cle 13y ago
  I'm tempted to agree with you. "They're just trying to support their family" can only be an acceptable excuse up to a point. I don't know if Zynga reached that point or not. I just think it's important to keep in mind that you can only do so much evil before "providing for your family" is no longer a valid excuse. Of course, this all sounds ridiculous in comparison to "real" evil, like mass murder. So I'm also tempted to disagree ;).
pandaman 13y ago
Zynga has poached a lot of talent from the real game industry. People don't need to resign and join Zynga - it's a choice they've made. And with the requirements Zynga had - even if you had been unemployed and got an offer from Zynga you could get another one everywhere else: they had not been exactly scrapping the bottom of the barrel, quite the opposite.
- heliotron 13y ago

lsc 13y ago

>they were part of a modern day ponzi scheme that would blow up once Facebook become uncool. but isn't this like 80% of silicon valley, at this point? I mean even google is now trying to become facebook; and the rest of us are just trying to get acquired by one of the giants, or trying to sell something to the Engineers who are in one of those groups. I mean, seriously, glass houses; be careful with them rocks.

wutbrodo 13y ago
What? Even assuming that Google is trying to become Facebook and that everyone is "trying to get acquired", why do those situations preclude trying to create something that you believe has actual value (vs the complete, blatant ripoffs and spammy crap that Zynga pushes). You're free to disagree that Zynga's games _are_ spammy ripoffs, but you didn't seem to take issue with that part of the parent comment's post, and saying that the rest of the Valley is engaged in the same behavior is downright silly.
- lsc 13y ago
  >Even assuming that Google is trying to become Facebook and that everyone is "trying to get acquired", why do those situations preclude trying to create something that you believe has actual value[?] well, assuming you honestly believe that facebook creates enough real value to justify it's valuation, sure, you are right. My take on the matter is that it's myspace 2.0. I mean, no question, it's worth something, but not nearly what it's valued at right now. I personally have a very difficult time believing that anyone who was working in the industry during the first dot-com can honestly believe that facebook is a sustainable business. The only people I know who honestly espouse the view that facebook is fairly valued are facebook employees. (Interestingly, I know no facebook employees who were working during the first dot com.) I mean, maybe these people all really believe exactly what their paymasters want them to believe? Personally, I find that thought far more creepy than the idea that they are just faking it because that's what the employer requires. Certainly there is some selection effect; you are more likely to apply for a facebook job if you believe the company is going somewhere? but it's weird. I remember one guy who is probably the staunchest facebook advocate I know now, he was extremely cynical about facebook before he got the job. Of course, he's also pretty young, too young to have worked through the first dot-com. The weird thing is that I know a bunch of people who work for defense contractors, too... a place where you'd expect a certain level of brainwashing. None of those people believe their companies are doing good things for the world. Not one. I mean, they generally think the work is really interesting, but they don't believe at all in the end goals. (and I do have some conservative friends... it's just that none of them work for defense contractors.) But then, what do I know? I find that what I consider to be 'spammy crap' is a pretty good heuristic for what most people want. I don't use facebook because it consists almost entirely of what I would call spammy crap. Spammy crap and baby pictures.