Quoting disaster...

"You can't trust 75% of the quotes on the internet."

- Christopher Columbus c:1492

I don't doubt this blog will stir up a few suggestions I'm a Zynga crony etc. It seems criminally unfashionable these days to have positive feelings about the company that gives us our games, and Lord knows I have my problems with how they run Frontierville... But sometimes folks are so eager to Zynga-bash it just gets silly.

I place some of the blame on Social Media, it's so easy now to copy and paste a status, or click share, that often we don't think to go DEEPER. It's how scams trap us, we just click, or share, or like a post... without wondering, like a river, where is the source and what's been peeing in it.

Recently I reckon most of us here have seen the CAPS LOCKED and infuriated little status doing the rounds at the moment about a statement released by Zynga, something loosely saying "we don't care about older players, only new ones."

I've seen a goodly number, as have the other admins. They're heartfelt and emotive in their own little way but here's the teeny tiny problem. It's based on a sinkhole foundation. Looks solid enough but poke around and the whole thing falls through the floor. The entire basis of the status is false.

For starters, let's look at the crux of it, this is the statement:

"Zynga has expressed a strange sentiment to explain their recent departure of players that they don’t care as much about retaining existing users as they do attracting new ones. While veteran players of games like Farmville and Mafia Wars get fed up with the company’s games or service, Zynga is content to just keep releasing an endless stream of titles in hopes that by getting new players, they outweigh the tide of old ones leaving."

The problem here is this is suggested to have come from Zynga, spoken, written, even just intimated. The reader is left believing this is the words and feelings of Zynga. Then the posters will add their own heartfelt emotive comment regarding how dare Zynga think like this... aiding new people to fall in the trap with every share.

So, to the truth of where it came from. The words above weren't based on any Zynga comment, on any statement, on anything anyone had broadcast. They were based on one man's report into the release of Hidden Chronicles, the new hidden object game from Zynga.

His point was that he felt in releasing new games such as HC he FELT that Zynga were just wanting lots of new people playing new games instead of working on the ones they had. Unfortunately this opinion was picked up, someone out there didn't quite read it properly, cocked their Caps Lock Button and let rip.

This is one guys FEELINGS written in a blog, it's not an article in the magazine, it's a contributor blog on the site, one that contains individual thoughts and ideas, much like this one of mine.

He is suggesting that developing a new game is Zynga ignoring old players and just wanting new ones. This is what this contributor has decided in his head that is now being ripped from the comfort of its context and spread as if it's quotes from Zynga.

In part I blame the writer himself (who admits he's new to journalism but has written some good stuff). In using the strange phrase "expressed" he was, himself, suggesting this was something that had come from Zynga, instead of something he felt from seeing the HC release.

In fact, in context, it's more about how Zynga are following, rather than leading, the gaming landscape on Facebook and to be wary of investing in their stock. (Which is fair enough, Hidden Chronicles IS nothing other than a Gardens of Time ripoff, but that's not suggesting there's anything bad there)

Let's take a look at some facts specifically tailored to the game we love:

Frontierville is glitchy. Yes it is. It could do with the Trail ripping out, a LOT less of a flood of new stuff and some serious recoding to make it more efficient and stop crashes with Flash when opening Collections or the Rodeo etc.

Frontierville needs a big overhaul and possibly a complete change in mindset, less stuff, less begging, better optimisation. This is true, right now the game has become less fun to play, it's become more of a chore.

But bringing out a new game means squat to the ones we have. There's a strange assumption Zynga have one development team and a new game draws people from an old one, which is untrue. Every game is its own little autonomous being. It has its own developers, its own program team, its own communication team...

Zynga is like a massive shopping centre (that's Mall for Americans). A big building made up of lots of smaller, independent entities, a symbiosis if you will. Adding a Starbucks in the food court won't mean it's crewed by the shop assistants of Foot Locker.

I like to consider this blog something of a Switzerland of Neutrality when it comes to Frontierville (although I know others don't...) I've pointed out where the gamers have done silly things or misunderstood, I've also pointed out where ZYNGA have done silly things or, in fact downright stupid ones.

Yes, I will defend Zynga and resist the ever increasing number of Zynga bashers who give every glitch a Machiavellian plot and suggest evil intent in pretty much everything that the company do. But I'll also point out where the company are wrong, and if they really HAD said they didn't care about the gamers who've been with them for years (as a gamer who's been with them for years) I would be shouting it at them and at my own gaming friends on my status.

But I'm not. Because they haven't. We can THINK they do, we can SUGGEST it... But I don't think they do, and I think that for logical reasons.

Older players are more invested. Older players are more addicted. Every company wants more customers through its doors, but every company also knows that one person who keeps coming back (even if treated badly) is worth ten one time customers.

A new player to Frontierville might well see all the missions on offer and just quit. They wont have created their homestead, wont have become invested in the Fanny/Hank love affair and marriage. They won't feel attached to the game enough to get addicted, to pay for Horseshoes, to keep on, and on, and on, even if it's painful going.

New players will quit.

Even the blogger himself mildly contradicts himself when he points out Zynga's success is in its huge user base, a user base made up of old and new players alike. He is pointing out that Zynga rely on all players, not just new ones.

We've put up with some serious Hell in our time with Frontierville, and we're still here. THAT is why Zynga knows they need to hold on to the older players, the addicted players. THAT is why the statement above, as lovely and dramatic as it is, is nothing more than one man's feelings based on the release of a new game, taken out of context and given a false official tag, like a fake police badge.

The original blog can be read HERE.

Now let the accusations... COMMENCE!