An Open Letter To Zynga

[PLEASE NOTE: as with everything else in this blog these are my personal thoughts. They do not represent the opinions and views of Frontierville Express, the other admins or members.

This will likely never be seen by the people that matter, but I feel I have to write it. I would be obliged if, should you agree, you share it... who knows, someone may find it who DO know these people.]

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Dear Sir/Madam,

This is a hard letter for me to write, because it's something I didn't want to think about really. I love this game, and I want it to succeed.

The game itself has given me many, MANY hours of enjoyment, and allowed me to meet some amazing people who, Frontierville or not, will be around in my life for, I hope, a very long time.

But the game, as it is, is teetering on the edge of an abyss.

I only wish I was being over-dramatic, I have scoffed, I admit, at the more hyperbolic comments left by folks in online forums regarding the game and always thought it had enough about it that people would always want to play it. I don't think that any more.

The following will be tough, but I hope, fair. You may stop reading, you may just categorise me as a crackpot who doesn't know what I'm talking about. But I know games, I know marketing and I know the players, I spend my time talking to them, helping them and listening to their problems.

The fact is, you've made some serious errors in the game over the last 6 months, errors that will cost the game players, HAVE cost the game players... and will continue to do so as you don't seem to be of a mind to solve those errors, but instead you compound them, like a social experiment on the breaking point of gamers.

We understand glitches will happen, we understand limitations will happen, what we don't understand is why choices are being made that are actively, and expansively, taking the fun away.

Let's start with the missions. Quite WHY we are being inundated with the amount we are is something I simply don't understand, especially with the complexity of them.

This week we had THREE mission threads totalling 26 unique missions, 40 in all including necessary repeats.

Why? I understand you're keeping a plotline going, that you'll have some kind of list of "stations" on a railroad track somewhere plotting what we'll be getting to keep the story rolling.

If that is the case I'd imagine you have a Birth plotline coming in the future that will finally reach the end of what has felt like the most demanding pregnancy ever, and has led most players to wonder how on Earth Hank managed to "do the deed" in the first place without our help collecting 20 Barry White records, 20 candles and crafting one strong bed.

So, OK, I'll give you that one, the Baby Naming pushed the story on. But what about the others?

The Family Tree is disconnected from any plot, this get together could have been planned next week, next month, next Summer for that matter. There was no reason to place it in the game beyond "we've had this idea, chuck it in."

Equally the Prospect Falls missions could easily have waited, in fact it would have made more sense to occur once more people had got into the last set of missions in the Falls, so when Falls missions are slipping, something else comes to pick up the slack and keep our interest going in the new expansion.

I love cooking and cookery... and I know one thing for sure. Nothing is as bad as taking a basket full of ingredients and thinking you have to use them just because they're there.

It wouldn't be so bad if these were simple missions, but instead they are needlessly overcomplicated, stuffed full of depressing repeats, monotonous crafting and tedious waiting for friends to send crops or trees that are only available as free gifts. (I've gone into a diatribe about the awful nature of many of the missions elsewhere, I shan't go into it here as well.)

The missions themselves, the FUN of the game, are no longer fun, they are a chore, and a confusing chore at that. I'm friends with some people who are almost FTV-savants. They could have 10 missions on the go and always know what they need for which one and where they are in terms of planted crops or growing animals.

That doesn't happen any longer, you have done the impossible, you have done the equivalent of baffling Stephen Hawking with a maths problem.

They're confused, and people don't enjoy being confused. People like to feel they have some control and aren't just flailing around trying to grab hold of something enjoyable like a blindfolded Hugh Heffner in a ballroom of Playboy Bunnies.

Surely you know, surely you talk in-depth with the community people on your staff, the ones who connect with the forums or the support agents? You must realise that we are in, if I can veer into military vernacular, a Red Alert, a Defcon 5, a deepening and seemingly inescapable Afghanistan of morale.

Surely you're getting feedback and realising what we see daily... that the game just isn't fun any more. How many people are merely doing it now through a sense of duty or routine? How many are just doing it because the game has given them good friends and they want to keep connected to them?

Right now, as someone who works a fan page the negativity is soul destroying, remember we get it ALL day, other folks can have their 5 minutes writing a negative post and go play with a puppy. It's all we see, and it's worse because it's totally and utterly justifiable.

Mission releases used to be fun, exciting, something to look forward too. The admins would write the stuff up and know folks would be happy to get new missions and new items.

These days we know there will be apathy at best from a large percentage of members. You have somehow made the arrival of new stuff... depressing.

I honestly don't understand why, which may be the most frustrating thing of the lot.

Is it the marketing of so many wall posts and direct requests? If so I've explained previously the short sighted nature of that feeling, the turn OFF that 12 posts in a row will be to new members, not to mention the fact if players leave that will put quite a dent in that scheme.

Is it to try and slow down the people who pay horseshoes or cheat to complete mission quickly? If so you will excuse my French when I say "screw 'em". Let them rush if they feel the need and then let them understand boredom.

I can guarantee you that if you're fearing the "I'm bored" crowd will cause a mass exodus of players from the game then you are very wrong. The amount of people who would leave because of a lack of missions is a meager percentage of those being driven away by a lack of enjoyment, a crushing feeling of being overwhelmed and, ironically, boredom.

You know what's not really boring? Not having any missions so trying to catch up with badges, collections or Bulletin Board shorts.

You know what IS boring? Doing the same mission more than once. Waiting 8 hours to ask for something. Crafting the same item for the 12th time from something that is identical in use and name to something we've used before... but is "new" so none of them count.

If this has somehow reached someone in power, and if you're still reading, I beg this of you. Talk to the staff below you, talk to the people who run fanpages and have daily, even hourly (heck, minutely if that's a word), contact with dissatisfied players, a group that is becoming the majority.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, we love this game and are prepared to compromise, requesting, crafting, even repeating have their place in the game to some extent. But when even the most ardent of players dread the arrival of missions? Something has gone horribly wrong, the GAME has gone horribly wrong.

And all we ask is you take some time and think about what we're saying.

We understand glitches, we understand the game will have technical problems. What we can't understand is when the game has 'problems' placed in there specifically when 10 minutes on forums would show it to be a bad idea.

Take me seriously or consider me a mouthy jerk... Please talk to other people. Because I can say with almost 100% certainty, you'll find others who feel the same way.

Yours sincerely,

Andy Spencer