Buried in Zynga’s mammoth digital registration filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which could lead to injecting a billion, perhaps billions, in cash into the company, are also the blueprints for Zynga’s destruction.
In outlining the risks to potential investors, Zynga founder Mark Pincus paints a direct connection between the success of Facebook, and it’s attitude toward Zynga, and the survival of the casual game publisher.
“If we are unable to maintain a good relationship with Facebook, our business will suffer,” he writes high up in the voluminous document. Digging deeper in we find out just how true that is.
Pincus says that there are a myriad of ways that Facebook ( a company referenced more than 200 times in the filing) could completely screw his company:
- They could limit access to Facebook by Zynga.
- They could change the rules that all game makers have to follow (including that 30 percent cut Facebook currently takes) .
- They could simply cancel Zynga’s agreement.
- They could develop their own in-house games.
- They could become best buddies with another Facebook game maker.
- Of course, Facebook itself could also just wither up and die.
What makes this so stark, and telling, is that it paints a picture of a budding company that has a whole lot of eggs in one basket, which happens to be another still budding company.
And on top of that Facebook can just on a whim change the rules. That’s what the social network did last year when they decided that everyone on their service had to use their virtual currency, which also happened to increase Facebook’s cut. Or when they decided to limit how Facebook users can share information with friends.
So the best way to kill Zynga, it seems, is to kill Facebook. That or help another casual game maker outpace it.
toolboy
Saturday, July 2, 2011 at 8:27 AMwhere do I sign?
MrTaco
Saturday, July 2, 2011 at 9:36 AMKill the facebook, free the internet.
Achenar
Saturday, July 2, 2011 at 10:15 AMMuch more poignant in the context of Google+ coming out – so the easiest way to kill Facebook is to convince all your friends to migrate to Google+.
Won’t work for those friends of yours who actually PLAY Facebook games, but it’s a starting point.
Reoh
Saturday, July 2, 2011 at 11:44 AMWhy don’t we just say that those left behind are still in “quarantine” until they get rid of their facebook game habit? ;)
Smythe
Sunday, July 3, 2011 at 11:28 AMI don’t see any connection with Facebook games and “Friends” of mine…
if there is a connection, it’s gone now.
Joe Mama
Saturday, July 2, 2011 at 5:03 PMWouldn’t it just move on to another social network or the iPhone?
Camb3h
Sunday, July 3, 2011 at 9:07 AMZynga already owns a couple of really successful games for the iPhone, such as Words with Friends.
I understand that the article is probably a bit of a laugh, but killing facebook wouldn’t really kill Zynga. It’d hurt for sure, but no way would it kill.
Cam
Monday, July 4, 2011 at 1:05 PMRovio are in the same boat. They are one hit wonders. Have you looked at their back catalogue? It’s fail after fail. Kill Angry Birds too while we’re at it!