Zynga only wants money. But so does Nintendo. And Blizzard. And Valve.
Photo by aresauburn
“Blizzard and Nintendo don’t care about money; they only care about making fun games. Zynga just wants to turn a profit by making terrible games.”
Not exactly.
Video games, like painting, music, film, and theater, are a form of art. At the very least, they are a creative media that can be used to express any number of themes, ideas, fictional stories or worlds and convey experiences. For this reason, many players and developers have deep emotional attachments to the games that they play, games that touched their hearts and took them places they had never been before.
Companies that make these kinds of games are held in the highest esteem by players and fans. Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda games have always been known for their charm, easy-to-understand controls and challenges, and their flair for presentation and playability. Valve’s Half-Life and Portal games have many die hard fans who greatly respect the artistic integrity of the plot, storyline, and characters surrounding Gordon Freeman’s adventures. And Blizzard’s Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo franchises have given the company a seemingly unshakable reputation for high quality, polished experiences that are near-perfect. Each of these companies make the highest quality games in their own way, and saying that a game is “A Blizzard Game”, “A Valve Game”, or “A Nintendo Game” carries with it a mark of passion and dedication associated with those development teams.
However, other companies make games that are not as popular with the traditional gaming crowd. Currently the popular scapegoat is social networking companies, such as Zynga or Playdom. Games like Farmville or Sorority Life are wildly profitable, but they are often criticized for sacrificing fun and player entertainment in exchange for turning a buck. Clicking on crops day in and day out just doesn’t seem to have the same “labor of love” feel that went into a Zelda game. Rather, these games appear to some to be evil slot machines designed to maximize monetization.
This complaint is a serious misconception of the intentions of game companies. Those who voice this complaint believe that commercial games must be fun, that they must be of the highest quality, and that their number one, ultimate goal is to make a critically acclaimed product.
This is false.
The reason that a company makes a video game is not to help people have fun. The reason that any game company makes a game is to make money. This doesn’t just apply to Zynga. It applies to everyone.
A Loss of Innocence
Commercial games are often entertaining, but they ultimately must turn a profit. If a game company like Nintendo or Zynga makes a critically acclaimed game that fails to pull in revenue, then that company and that product is a failure. Perhaps not a failure in its Metacritic score, in its level of entertainment, or any other measure except the one that actually mattered. But in the realm of its sole purpose, revenue, it failed.
This is a difficult truth for some student developers or game players to grasp. The purpose of a business is to make a profit. If a group of developers wanted to make games for art and entertainment’s sake, then they should have formed as a non-profit or made the game as a hobby. So why do companies attempt to make games that are fun at all? Why not just make the cheapest, most crude game possible that will turn a profit?
This is a question of means versus ends. Successful companies have found that the best way to profits is to create games that customers both praise and pay for. Companies make games that are fun because that is their business model. They have found that there is a high correlation between how “fun” the game is and how many units they sell. So being entertaining is a means to an end; it is not the end in itself. If that means was no longer profitable, then our most beloved companies cease to use that means. Social networking games, for example, may not have the story arcs and character development of console games, but they encourage viral growth and repeated visits, which are also means to profits.
If you are Nintendo, Valve, Blizzard, or Zynga, and you find that making products with attribute X results in sales and revenue, then you are going to make products with attribute X, provided that it is legal and within your company’s abilities. This is the primary purpose of all for-profit businesses in the world.
This desire to turn a profit does not have to be immediate or even in the short term. In fact, it may be in the long term at the expense of the short term. A company may spend money investing in developing an entertaining game or releasing a powerful game console while taking a loss and losing money. But the reason that a company would do that is for the purpose of making more money down the road. One example is Blizzard’s cancellation of their game “Starcraft: Ghost” several years ago. Did they cancel the game to protect their players from an un-fun game? Perhaps, but that was not the only reason. The reason was that releasing the game would have hurt the Blizzard brand and made it more difficult for them to make money in the future. Follow the decision making process at any company, and it will eventually lead to money.
It’s Not For You
Many recent games outside of the core gaming market such as Farmville have been criticized by the traditional gaming community because of their apparent focus on profit and lack of focus on fun and enjoyment. These games, it appears to some critics, focus too much on monetizing and not enough on being entertaining.
But as we’ve already discussed, there is no difference in priorities between a game like Farmville and a critically acclaimed title like Valve’s Portal. Both of them exist to make a profit; that is their #1, most important purpose that the game’s success is measured against. Winning in any other category does not matter to Zynga nor Valve.
Most often, this criticism comes from traditional game players who are not fans of the games. They say that these games don’t have the heart and soul like console games do. But this is a misunderstanding. All these critics are really saying is that they personally do not enjoy the game. The game isn’t for them; it’s for a different type of audience and a different type of customer. Someone likes the game, or it would not be selling. The fallacy is that hardcore gamers assume that Farmville is “no fun” and thus focused solely on profit, whereas Portal is “fun” and thus not focused on profit.
On the contrary, both serve the same purpose, just through different definitions of “fun”. Fun to your grandmother may not be the same kind of fun to you.
Art for Art’s Sake
Of course not every endeavor in the game development world is a business. People are free to make whatever they want for whatever reasons as a hobby, student project, or what have you. Student games and independent games posted online at are often made simply for the purpose of exploring and making an enjoyable game. The critically acclaimed high-concept game “Braid” was profitable, but it is arguable that its chief creator’s primary goal was not making money. Since he was the controlling investor in the game, that was his decision to make. If someone is not interested in money but instead is interested in furthering the art of games, making something that hits 1,000,000 plays on Kongregate, or exploring a new Base Mechanic, then that is fine.
But that is not the purpose of a business.
Well run for-profit companies will follow the money. Public traded companies especially (but also private companies with investors) exist for the purpose of giving their investors a profitable return. That is what they were designed to do. So if that means making thrilling action puzzlers to make a profit, so be it. If it means making social-networking click through titles, then so be it. The means may be different but the goal is the same.
If a designer at a large company made a game that was not profitable, then his game would be unfortunately considered a commercial failure by the company no matter what. The critically acclaimed game “Psychonauts” comes to mind, a Playstation 2 game that was enjoyed by many players who were fans of designer Tim Schafer, yet did not sell well. Despite being called one of the best platformers to every be developed, it could not find its way off of store shelves.
Because of its commercial mediocrity, there has been no development of a second Psychonauts game. If an executive at Majesco, the game’s publisher, continued to fund critically acclaimed games that did not turn a profit, he would eventually be fired. He may have helped to give the world an artistic game, but he failed at his job to green-light a game that would make the publisher money. If his poor decision making continued, his publisher would eventually go out of business entirely.
Is it wrong for companies to want to make money? No, in fact it is the definition of capitalism. Or perhaps a more pressing question: do companies that focus on profit make worse games than companies focused on fun (that is, hobbyists)? The answer is sometimes. But that is not a reflection of the profit incentive. It is a reflection of a poorly run company. The best companies in the world, the Nintendo’s, the Blizzard’s, do not let their quality drop as their profits rise. They understand the connection.
This is the best case scenario for a commercial game company, to make games that are both critically acclaimed by their fans and wildly profitable. The players get what they want in terms of artful, enthralling titles, and the company makes enough money to continue doing what they do best. This is the ideal that makes everyone happy. These are the companies that everyone wants to be. Companies that make one jaw-dropping title and then go out of business do a disservice not only to themselves, but also to their fans. Better to make your fans and your investors happy so that you can stay in business and keep doing what you do best.
The Capitalist Game Industry
Everyone knows that Zynga exists to make money. But Nintendo also exists to make money. Blizzard exists to make money. And Valve exists to make money. It is not incorrect to say that games are art. It is also not incorrect to say that many games are fun. What is incorrect is to say that companies, especially publicly traded companies, make commercial games for reasons other than making money.
While it may be nice to think that Sony or Nintendo exist to entertain you, the truth is that they exist and operate only to make a profit. This is the commercial video game industry as we know it, and it is an exciting place to be in. While every game company may not appeal to you, every game company either appeals to someone or will soon go out of business anyway.
Comments
5 Responses to “Zynga only wants money. But so does Nintendo. And Blizzard. And Valve.”Leave a comment, and if you'd like your own picture to show up next to your comments, go get a gravatar!
I widely agree with you, but your view of business, and game business in particular, is chilling.
I would like to introduce the idea that every company doesn’t necessarily aim only for profit. Of course profit is a must have, but profit could be just the mean to make your next product.
In most business when money is your goal and your product the mean, the chances to fail grow bigger.
Perhaps it’s a rule more difficult to apply to Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Blizzard, Activison, EA…
But for small business, a soulless product could be fatal.
@Damien, yes companies can have other goals, but the purpose of a corporate entity in itself is to provide investors with a return. The company can have other goals, of course, but as you said, they don’t matter as much as making a profit. If a CEO allows wonderful games to be made while the company is sinking, then he will either be replaced or need to quickly turn the ship around.
Of course the best companies focus on creating the highest quality games, making fans out of their players , providing fun and enjoyment, and enriching people’s lives. But all of those are ways the company can make money.
My main point is that there isn’t anything less innocent about companies like Zynga than there are for companies like Nintendo. It’s up to each company to decide what to say in their rhetoric, to always talk about finding the fun, or to talk about monetizing players. But they are both operating with the same primary goal.
And finally, yes, it would seem that companies that focus only on profits would make inferior products, but I contend that this only occurs with weak companies. Strong ones understand that customer satisfaction and great games are the best way to profits.
Thanks for the comment!
That was a very thought provoking article. You make some good points, but I have to disagree with the overall conclusion. I think that when people say that Zynga is just in it for the money, what they are really saying is that Zynga is focusing on money at the expense of quality.
I can agree that the lifeblood of every company is money, without it the company will die. So companies have to go where the money is.
The thing is, that there are a lot of ways to make money. The best ways, the most sustainable ways, are to produce a high quality product that lots of people like. You provide value to the customer in equal measure to the value you receive from the customer. To do this you have to hire bright people who burn with a passion to make great games. The company is there to make money, but the employees are there to make games. Those two desires have to be carefully balanced to create a sustainable business.
Another, less effective, way to make money, is through dishonesty. There are lots of ways to do this. You can provide a low quality product, and overcharge for it, trying to convince people that it is of higher quality than it actually is. You can ride on the coattails of other, more successful companies, making cheap knockoffs of their products. You can also employ psychological tricks to get people to use your products. None of these would require a employees with a passion for making games, in fact employees like that might just get in the way.
The dishonest methods can produce money, and sometimes they can work for several years. But in the end a business relying on these kinds of practices will fail.
Zynga has used a lot of the more dishonest business practices. That’s why people say that Zynga is in it only for the money. That’s what makes the efforts of companies like Blizzard, Valve, Nintendo and others more admirable, is their focus on providing high quality products and providing value to the customer. It is the best business practice, but it is also a more admirable way of making money.
@Darius, well said, it is often more useful to separate out the goals of the employees versus the corporate entity itself. No one should defend dishonest or illegal business practices of course, and a history of things that people disagree with can color your opinion of a company. And while Zynga did get caught up in much of the early problems with the founding of the social gaming industry, they have been quick to fix mistakes and plug holes. Will their games ever appeal to the core gaming audience, however? Questionable.
Thanks for your comment!
Oh man, I could discuss this one for days… When I was at the first Flash Gaming Summit, one of the Zynga guys got up there and basically said, ‘this is how you can make millions with Flash games,’ and proceeded to tell the audience how to extort human nature to get more plays. Not get more sales, just more page views. Social grooming is the big one, getting players feeling guilty for not helping out others on Facebook, for instance. Making people come back for something is another (waiting for crops to grow)…
An even bigger part of getting sales than making a good game, of course, is marketing, if your game is really really good, it will market itself. It’s helps to have an easily understandable product, like yet another shooter, or another iteration of a series. I’ve heard Tim Schafer complain about the publisher in the case of Psychonauts. Players just didn’t know what they would be getting (a platformer-comedy?).
In the case of Zynga, they make games that market themselves virally, not because they’re amazing so people seek them out after seeing or hearing of them from friends (Shadow of the Colossus), or because of a great marketing campaign, or viral mindshare, but for the simile fact that they spam the he’ll out of all your ‘friends’ on Facebook. It’s dirty and its annoying as hell. Sort of like those ads that use profile pictures to claim that one of your buddies endorses a product, when they don’t.
Nintendo gets sales by making gaming mentally accessible to everyone, Blizzard does so by making some of the best games in the industry, with a very specific focus on PC centric genres, and Valve, well, Half-Life is just incredible, Steam beats the pants off most DRM, and their support for released games is incredible. These are all companies that people respect, and make money to make better games. With the money Zynga’s been making, they should have released Starcraft 2 before Blizzard, online and for free.
Now, I come from a background in psychology, so I could pretty easily make games that screw with social behavior in order to get a few more cheap clicks, but at that point, I might as well be writing spam emails. Also, no one that I’ve asked actually enjoys playing Farmville, they just feel like they have to, more like an addiction than something fun, and sure gaming can be addicting, when it’s fun and you just want to be a little better at the game.
And no, their games will never appeal to a core audience, because they don’t know how to, nor do they have any interest in, making games with core elements that have anything to do with fun.