Posted in: apple, facebook, games

The Zynga Hate Has Gone Too Far. Maybe They Should Go Private.

I have been working in free-to-play games for the past 5 years and I have been reading a lot of articles describing Zynga’s recent announcement about a soft Q3 2012 on the back of a less than stellar Q2 2012. The public markets clearly don’t like Zynga’s stock – it’s down substantially since its IPO […]

Posted in: Gadgets & Handsets, social networking

Classic Parlor and Board Games Continue to Inspire Social Mobile Game Devs

Yesterday someone asked me the ubiquitous “what’s working in mobile social games?” question and I thought it was worth pointing out that a lot of the most popular games today outside of the physics genre (by reach and revenue) are social mobile versions of known popular board and parlor games adapted for asynchronous play on […]

Posted in: Gadgets & Handsets, social networking

Does Android Need Its Own Version of Game Center?

In all of the announcements about Apple’s iOS5, the one that caught my attention was the continued progress that Apple has been making with GameCenter. They now claim over 67 million registered players for the Game Center service and it continues to expand to include a wider range of game types. I’ve been thinking about […]

Posted in: facebook, social networking, web20

Do Social Games Need More Social Chaos?

Something has been bugging me about social games of late. There are a lot of great games out there – I play a lot of them. And you know what many of them have in common? There isn’t enough chaos in most of today’s social games. Let me explain what I mean. I grew up […]

Posted in: facebook, social gaming, social networking, virtual goods, web20, zynga

Is Zynga’s Farmville.com A Sign of Things to Come or a Clever Hedge?

I was reading TechCrunch’s article on Zynga’s launch of Farmville.com earlier today. I’ve seen a lot of speculation about why Zynga might do this and what it means for the industry. I don’t think it signals a major shift away from Facebook or social networks, but it is an interesting hedge (at best) or a […]

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