Seriously though, hopefully this well shed some light on why Zygna uses the techniques they are known for -- they work. Amazingly well. Anyone who spends time in this industry discovers that pretty quickly. And it's really hard for upper management to see those upward kinks in the graph and say "please stop doing that."
The problem is that you have to become pushier and pushier over time and this leads to a slippery slope.
It's Zynga's pay-to-win/continue concept that I have a problem with. That's the reason why I think Zynga is 'evil'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zynga#Intellectual_property_con...
How about all the other companies who try the same (completely obvious) tactics and don't reach 4M users in 6 months?
Now, obviously, they still had to build a compelling product and plan & execute a marketing strategy. They needed to be ready to succeed. Most people don't have a personal or professional network that includes access to decision-makers in large, influential organizations. Even so they still need to be prepared for that opportunity if and when their network expands.
Hence why you haven't heard of them. Hope that helps Howard
What exactly is social in the game ?
On a side note, 4M users for a game in 6 months is great but not that extraordinary. Looking at successes like Draw Something and SongPop, from small developers too, it's more in the 50+M but it's in the mobile social space, not sure if I Am Playr is mobile or not.
Seriously, you think that's not that extraordinary...
Doing this effectively is absolutely remarkable all on its own.
Around 150k daily active user, it's nice, especially for a first game, but with that you are not even in the top 300 of the facebook platform.
Keep in mind that games are very different from other products. You tend to have lots of them for a short amount of time, then they move to something else. It's not like a service like Dropbox where once acquire you have a very good retention.
