Zynga CEO: "Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers."

The "social" games space is ripe for revolution. There's no fun there, nothing virtuous in what they consider gameplay. You don't even play with your friends, so much as exploit them for personal gain.<p>It's a very cynical view of how to spend time with people. When the leading social games company is led by a guy like Pincus, what more can you expect?

To me this sounds like Zynga just took an idea that was already out there, improved upon it, and executed the marketing/business side of things better than their competitors.<p>The blatant art rip-off is evil, but the methodology of "taking something proven, and making it better" is not.<p>Apple does this all the time, and I don't fault them for it.<p>For the HN crowd who "can't find an idea for a startup", maybe this is a really good method of finding one. Look at what's successful out there, and emulate to make it better.

I find myself entirely on Pincus' side.<p>The author of the article mistakenly assumes that Zynga's value is in Farmville/Fishville/Poker. It's not.<p>Pincus once said that if he could re-do tribe, he would instead build "a platform for testing ideas about how to make social networks," or something. With Zynga, Pincus has buildt an entire company mechanism for figuring out how to make money from FB games, I assume revolving around everything from what he calls "ghetto testing" to a/b tests et cetera.<p>Yes, Zynga obviously copied the ideas being a lot of its games. So did 300 other companies. The value in Zynga is that it beat those 300 other companies. This article gives us no way of understanding why it beat all those other companies. My guess it that it's because Zynga's value is in its "platform for figuring out how to get people to pay money for games" rather than in the games themselves.

The entire article omits the fact that Zynga furiously iterates on their designs and improves them. I remember when I first joined Facebook and finding Mafia Wars to be just a cheap knock-off of other games with practically the same name. Within months Mafia Wars was streamlining their game, adding new experiences, and making the game more responsive and pleasant to look at. Their competition, from whom they copied, hadn't changed at all.

I heard the CEO speak at Startup School last year, and he claimed that he wanted Zynga to be an internet treasure--something with lasting value. Sounded good to me.<p>His high minded spiel then seems contrarian to the report here, and I'm tempted to believe the report. Makes me less inclined to see what else he has to say.<p>If it's true, I'm guessing eventually, he'll lose developer and gamer mindshare in that people won't want to work for Zynga. Then, would it be on its way to an internet treasure?

"I don't fucking want innovation," the ex-employee recalls Pincus saying. "You're not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers."<p>"The former employee, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly about his experience at Zynga, said this wasn't just bluster. Indeed, interviews conducted by SF Weekly with several former Zynga workers indicate that the practice of stealing other companies' game ideas — and then using Zynga's market clout to crowd out the games' originators — was business as usual."<p>No surprises there...

I have only a second hand exposure to farmville due to an avid player close to me. I wouldn't say they don't innovate - or at least they mask it real good. Farmville is full of new stuff that ties in together all the time, but general framework looks to be less keen on innovation.<p>I wonder how long can they run with it though. It's like where you have an ultra strong brand for games and you innovate by pushing various forms of gameplay scenarios (think of mario in various games not related to original genre mechanics). Farmville is just like the opposite, brand is the mechanics and framework.<p>Seasonal stuff they put in is the only innovation over original concept they snitched from Harvest Moon and alike. So I guess farmvilles ultimate fate likes where genre-locked games go - e.g. fighting games (street fighter, mk...) where original fad fades away and leaves in core player group. If they're lucky - and with so many users, they'd have to screw up pretty badly to lose all of their gaming audience.

Smart, smart move on Pincus' part.<p>Zynga's already done the innovative part in figuring out marketing/distribution. Now they need to reduce other risks. Copying competitors who have good game ideas but weak marketing/distribution is a great idea.

Ethical considerations aside, this seems like a solid management strategy to me. They have the brand to push through large mass of users , who are not so much into gaming as they are into socializing. If I were an investor in Zynga, I would be very happy , although I would probably use a part of the 10x ROI to buy a sweet gaming rig and play real games.

Pincus talked on Charlie Rose a year ago about wanting to build a lasting company as opposed to being a serial entrepreneur. I actually love that sentiment, but also think it is hard to differentiate from his current goal: going public.<p>Wall street investors will value this company very differently if it appears to be a fad that will have momentary glory (and revenue). That said, wall street tries to value a company's current AND future revenues (with an appropriate discount for risk and earnings out in the future) -- so Pincus is trying to get them to believe it is building the bedrock of a company that will last a hundred years.<p>Right now Zynga is a revenue rocketship (even if you don't like the product, people, or business) that will make Pincus and all their employees wealthy. Pretty easy to get people to work there with those prospects. The sustainable business will be the work of the next generation of employees after first 1000 have vested and moved on.<p>I wish them the best, but wouldn't count on them being a great stable business in 5 years. Tastes change and the best employees will have long since have cashed out.

I attended a startup seminar where speakers were founders from highly successful startups. Their advice was: "First imitate and then innovate". It is a usual business practice to first copy what's working for others, then innovate to make it better and leave the competition behind. It makes sense specially in a web industry where it takes very little time to catchup with competition. Companies have to keep innovating to keep an edge over imitators. Web industry doesn't have number 2 concept. It is either number 1 or out of business. I think not having room for number 2 is what is forcing companies to copy others work and kill the competition.

Sure, this is obviously the heart of Microsoft's successful tactics. Facebook, too, considering their newest ideas have been to copy twitter and foursquare. Actually, an embarrassing number of companies think like that. Unfortunately, the marketplace rewards them - consumers are indifferent to what should be a moral outrage AND to their own best interest, which is to reward originality in the hope that it produces more innovation. Instead, they reward copying and sleaze, and the innovators are extinguished - resulting in mediocrity.

I'm interested in how Zynga blatantly copying competitors is positioned as evil, but when Google promotes a software and hardware ecosphere that at heart requires the blatant copying of the iPhone, it's considered necessary and smart business. It can't be evil sometimes and not evil others. If copying is just smart business, then Zynga is proving that every shred of copying allowed by law is even smarter business.

Call me jaded but lately I've learned that most of the wealth on the internet is generated out of "Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers."<p>I keep encountering folks with this attitude, and sadly it seems to be working for them, very very well. No surprises that this is deliberately disseminated at Zynga

"I don't fucking want innovation", "You're not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers."<p>these quotes say it all, what I love from Zynga (put aside the ethical thing) is that they obsessively focus on "action" and "execution", and not "thinking". it matters because action makes the real things HAPPEN, here's why: when someone come and blame them and their whole evil philosophy they can just say that "it just happens. we just happened to build it, users just happened to use it and the company just happened to make revenue. get over it"

On a related topic, about copying and the drool over innovation, and thinking outside the box, and whatever buzzword bingo we're on:<p><a href="http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/08/03/down-with-innovation-up-with-imitation/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/08/03/down-with-innovation-up...</a><p>Well turns out this article wasn't submitted (I hope). <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1676407" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1676407</a>

Not sure this biz model is sustainable. Especially considering how much FB is changing and will continue to change.

I think the companies he copied should have had the vision to add money.<p>All they seem to be doing is simply find a game that has gone viral and copy it and add money so the viral effect can be much faster.<p>Point to note: When you have something viral garner more investment to get it even bigger, quicker.

I understand that Zynga is relatively good at what they do. But as a company I do not trust them at all. Just with the amount of spam advertising they do purely on Facebook it would not surprise me at all to see them sell your information to third parties.

You can still add value to people's lives by improving on what already exists versus creating from scratch.