Valve vs. Zynga

[TechNoFear]

I don't care about the launcher ads. Valve was at least creative and informative though, asked as a polite request than desperate spam.

Turbine's smaller, text ad was spam? But Steams was 'creative and informative'?

Did you actually see both the Valve and Turbine launcher ads or are you just guessing?

I saw both, and neither could be described as 'spam', 'creative' nor 'infomative'.

That element that falls for it. One-word posters, mindless drones for a seedy collective. I see them, I see them overrunning everything, overruling everything, derailing, trashing and destroying with no regard for those with good intentions. These people aren't doing it for fun, these people are just jerks. Jerks who this site is better off without.

Unless the 'jerks' post for Valve, they become valuable members of the Escapist?

Or are you claiming no Valve supporter acts as you described?

And so, when I get people like yourself begging me to respect you, pointing out my post as if something to be ridiculed, I decline.

I am astounded that you even briefly considered my post was to get YOUR respect, let alone long enough to post it. I used you as a clear example of the bias and double standard that made MM such an unpleasant fiasco.

Valve's method was polite and honest, they didn't take it like the be all and end all of things, just as a bit of harmless fun.

I would not call the full page ad Valve posted to Steam any more polite or honest than Turbine's (they were both just ads, nothing noteworthy about either).

In your biased perception there is a difference however, and you appear to still let your resentment of Turbine's victory last year show.

 

[Abriael]

The thing is, March Mayhem already had a villian and it went under the name of Turbine, the MMO developer who had won two years running due to its advertising technique. The only reason they lost this time was that they left it up to the user base to advertise for them. We didn't need another villain to battle, especially one which generated enough controversy to make the Valve vs. Zynga thread unreadable due to the traffic garnered in the later part of the round.

After two years, probably they felt the need to replace the villain. Otherwise things started to get old.
This year they had facebook connect, so the maker of a facebook game was basically the natural choice to call in an horde of barbarians to descend on the roman empire.

Sure, you're free to doubt that they didn't predict it. I think they did, but I might be wrong.

I don't see how Zynga are the exception to this rule. As the threads they were competing in showed, Zynga do have their dedicated users as well as the casual gamer audiences. These users did seem to know and love Zynga like those of the hardcore gamer audience like their developers, and the votes do show that these users were in larger amounts than those of the rival developers.

Sure, they have their dedicated audience, but they are a much, much smaller percentage of the total that the ones in the same position related to hardcore games.
I'd say, compared to the total, such percentage is negligible. If this wasn't the case, the number of voters for Zynga would have had 7 digits, considering how easy it was for their fans to get here and vote through facebook connect.
The fact that the VAST majority (I'd define it actually overwhelming majority) of their users didn't bother at all, despite how easy and quick it was, clearly shows that their actual popularity is pretty negligible. Their games are played or at least they are tested once by a whole ton of people, but it's pretty evident that the percentage of such people Zynga leaves an actual impression on (enough to perform a couple clicks when prompted, in order to help the developer win a competiton) is pretty low.

 

[Zombie_Fish]

After two years, probably they felt the need to replace the villain. Otherwise things started to get old.
This year they had facebook connect, so the maker of a facebook game was basically the natural choice to call in an horde of barbarians to descend on the roman empire.

Sure, you're free to doubt that they didn't predict it. I think they did, but I might be wrong.

Turbine weren't getting old as the enemy. They were still hated by older members for what they had done over the past two years in the anticipation [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/532.180310-2010-March-Mayhem-Developers-Showdown-Brackets-Are-Now-Locked-Good-Luck] to this year's March Mayhem.

EDIT: The fact that there are also a lot of new users who didn't know about Turbine's schemes last year would've also made them come across as a less old villain as well.

Feel free to think what you will, I just find the chances of The Escapist staff predicting that Turbine would not advertise to get through, thus they include Zynga for the first time knowing that they would advertise to get through a bit uncanny. I could be wrong as well, though.

Sure, they have their dedicated audience, but they are a much, much smaller percentage of the total that the ones in the same position related to hardcore games.
I'd say, compared to the total, such percentage is negligible. If this wasn't the case, the number of voters for Zynga would have had 7 digits, considering how easy it was for their fans to get here and vote through facebook connect.
The fact that the VAST majority (I'd define it actually overwhelming majority) of their users didn't bother at all, despite how easy and quick it was, clearly shows that their actual popularity is pretty negligible. Their games are played or at least they are tested once by a whole ton of people, but it's pretty evident that the percentage of such people Zynga leaves an actual impression on (enough to perform a couple clicks when prompted, in order to help the developer win a competiton) is pretty low.

Whilst that is the case for a percentage of their users, popularity isn't measured in what percentage of their users are dedicated users, it's measured in solid figures (and in this case, solid figures of users dedicated enough to vote). Although dedicated Zynga fans make up a very small minority of how many users they have, the sample this is taken from is large enough to make such a small percentage be worth a lot of figures in the form of users. Once again, this shows by the number of fans dedicated enough to vote for them.

This argument has the potential to simply start going round in circles soon, so after this post I'm calling it quits, unless you bring any sudden revelations for myself into it.

 

[Abriael]

Once again, this shows by the number of fans dedicated enough to vote for them.

You forgot one detail: Those "fans" were dedicated enough to vote through facebook connect, that required a couple of clicks. It remains to be seen what percentage of those would have been dedicated enough to vote if they had to go through the trouble of creating a proper Escapist account like everyone else.

I'd argue that, if that was the case, Zynga wouldn't have passed the first turn against NCsoft.

 

[SnipErlite]

Methinks the author of that article dislikes Zynga ever so slightly?


Heh. It was an epic fight. Good times.....

 

[khaimera]

Oh I'm glad I stayed away from March Mayhem, so much mod wrath

Or would you rather have Zynga win

No one wanted that, it would ruin the reputation of March Mayhem if it was given to a company that makes casual games

I wanted it just becuase the whoel idea of March Mayhem is rediculous and Zynga winning would have proved that point. The fact that this thread has so many responses while actual "important" and more serious topics are being ignored is proof of this.

I also think that what Zynga has done is genious and they deserve recognition for it. Look at how many people play their games. What other company can put up those numbers? Sure they are evil, so what. Lets keep pretending that our favorite developer, like Valve or Bioware is not evil. They are a friendly caring mega corporation. Sure. It was always about the money.

 

[TechNoFear]

EDIT: The fact that there are also a lot of new users who didn't know about Turbine's schemes last year would've also made them come across as a less old villain as well.

Feel free to think what you will, I just find the chances of The Escapist staff predicting that Turbine would not advertise to get through, thus they include Zynga for the first time knowing that they would advertise to get through a bit uncanny. I could be wrong as well, though.

So if Turbine advertises it is underhanded, but if Valve does exactly the same thing it is a great victory?

Why? What is the difference?

 

[Zombie_Fish]

So if Turbine advertises it is underhanded, but if Valve does exactly the same thing it is a great victory?

Why? What is the difference?

Did I say at any point that it was a great victory if Valve did it? I've certainly said that it's hypocritical for Valve fans to ask users on other sites for votes whilst frowning upon Zynga for doing the same thing:

Such as when Zynga begs visiters of other sites for votes it's called 'spam', whilst when the hardcore gamers and Valve fans do it it's called 'an unwritten truce that rallied everyone under Valve's flag'.

But looking back over my posts I didn't really say anything related to Valve's advertising being a great victory. I didn't even say that it was a great victory for Valve to have won in my aforementioned posts.

Can you quote me saying this or something?