Mafia Wars Zynga – The Company Runnin’ Your Mafia Wars
Have you ever wondered about the company behind the game Mafia Wars, Zynga? If you haven’t yet, you will sooner or later! It doesn’t take a devoted Mafia Wars player long to come up against little glitches or a gaming pet peeve. Then you will look for Zynga so you can send in suggestions, complaints, or petitions.
So here’s the 411 on Zynga.
You might be surprised to learn that Zynga is a pretty young company, founded in 2007. (The company is, incidentally, named after a beloved pet dog. The name means “warrior princess.”) Zynga is rocking the browser-based social networking game world with 46 million active users and 71 million registered users. (That’s one big “family” Zynga’s got, right?)
Looking for a big Mafia Wars family of your own? Get your game up to snuff with this Mafia Wars guide and…
The road to massive success has had some rocks for Zynga.
Can’t talk Zynga without talking lawsuits. Zynga was sued because Mafia Wars looked a whole lot like Mob Wars. The suit -filed in early 2009- was settled out of court in Sept ’09 for a lotta, lotta money – something more than 5 million and less than 10 million as the rumor has it.
Question: Can Zynga get a Mafia Wars achievement for that? We can call it the Cough It Up achievement.:-P
But the legal whirl isn’t over, because now Zynga is suing Playdom, who allegedly played false in an advertising campaign that scooped up Mafia Wars Zynga customers for Playdom’s game Mobsters.
Any way you cut it, these gaming companies are a litiginous lot.
You’ve got to wonder how these businesses pay for all those lawyers. What is the accounting behind Zynga’s “take?” Well, Mafia War’s Zynga makes money two ways (at least): 1. partner businesses and 2. direct credit card payments from players.
If you’ve played Mafia Wars a bit, you already aware of the partner businesses – they pop up into your game offering special game goodies or Godfather points for filling out online surveys, credit card applications, or product/service offers. You can imagine that lots of companies want access to the 71 million registered Zynga gamers. Zynga can collect quite a “take” for allowing those partner businesses access to players (i.e., you!).
The other way Mafia WArs’ Zynga makes money is direct credit card payments from players. When players get impatient with the natural replenishment of energy afforded by the game timer, they can buy game credits from Zynga and get points they can apply to energy (or whatever they want) – and that lets them complete more jobs or instigate more fights to earn the experience to level up faster. Or Mafia Wars Zynga credits can help you purchase special items youo need to advance your game.
While there is some debate about the gaming integrity of using bought (not earned!) points, there’s no doubt that it usually pays to pay. And with 46 million active users wanting to advance their games and see Cuba (and now, Moscow!), you can be sure that enough players take those purchased short cuts to keep Mafia Wars Zynga in the black.
Whatever you think of Zynga, I’m pretty sure they are here to stay. Sure, someone is always raging mad at them. (Gees, remember the hitlist changes they made in Dec. ’08? Players were boycotting left and right!) But social platform multi-user role playing games are hugely popular, no matter what glitches, bugs, and game changes Mafia Wars Zynga throws out there.
The real question is: Can Mafia Wars Zynga keep up with the demand from the hungry crowd of active players for more tiers and more game? (Now that Moscow is here…what’s next?!)
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