WEBVTT - The Zynga Story (So Far) 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:05.360 Get in touch with technologies with tech Stuff from how 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:14.000 stuff dot com. Hello again, everyone, and welcome to tech stuff. 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:15.720 My name is Chris Poette and I am an editor 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.000 at how stuff works dot Com. Sitting across from me, 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:22.280 as is typical, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. He there. 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:26.759 Uh sorry, I was catching up on my chef bill. 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:29.720 I needed to make some falcaccio. I was actually asking 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:33.479 people to come over and water my plants virtually, So 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:37.080 you may have already guessed today's topic is a quick 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:40.840 look because it hasn't been that old, a quick look 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:45.000 at the history of Zinga and Zinga is a company 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:48.000 that has made a big name for itself, not always 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:51.600 in a positive way online. And if you don't know 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:53.640 what Zinga is, it's a company that's based out of 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:58.920 San Francisco, California, as many tech companies are, and it 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:01.680 is a video game company. But it's a game company 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:05.560 that typically produces games that are either meant to go 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:09.400 on mobile devices, so smartphones and tablets, or they're meant 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:14.280 to exist on another platform like Facebook or Google Plus. 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:17.120 Although you can also go to the Zinga dot com 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:21.920 homepage and play games within widgets. Yeah, and uh, if you, 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:24.559 if you weren't sitting from where we were. As soon 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:26.720 as Jonathan said that this episode was going to be 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:30.479 about Zinga, you probably didn't hear the groans of many 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:34.679 of our listeners. We we heard you. It's okay, it 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:37.399 was hold on. It was like a thousand voices created 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:40.520 out in English and then were suddenly silenced. Yeah, zing 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:45.400 is it is a company that has acquired a following 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:50.240 and a big group of people who have pitchforks and 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:53.160 torches both there there there seemed to be a few 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:55.760 people in the middle of that, but not really. It's 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:58.440 it's uh, we'll get into that in just a minute, 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.960 but it does have quite a large group of people 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:07.600 who really pick on Zinga because of its business practices. 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.520 Um so, some people really love the games and some 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:14.440 of the games I don't really consider games because it's 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:17.160 really no ending to them. They're sort of software toys. 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:19.480 But they do they do make some games and things 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:24.840 and and there they had quite a huge, uh following, 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:28.240 even just a short time ago. But let's but it's 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:31.000 it's an interesting story because, as as Jonathan pointed out, 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:33.120 it has been a very short time. I mean, they 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.920 went from sort of nobody's in the industry, competing with 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:40.480 some of the biggest players like Electronic Arts to you know, 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:44.320 darlings of the computer industry and sort of towards back 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:47.560 again and not quite back again, but they're they're approaching it. 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:52.000 They're hurt as of the time. We're recordings in and 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:54.160 we'll get more into all of that. So this is 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:57.120 a company that was founded by a fellow named Mark 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:03.000 Jonathan Pinkus who found h Zinga right around two thousand seven, 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:07.760 and and Pinkas had been working well, he held several 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:11.280 jobs which in an interesting article we read on venture Beat, 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:14.519 which it was what was it a twelve page article 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:17.320 about the history of Zinga. Oh, that's an amazing article. 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:19.880 I would totally recommend people going to check this out 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:22.040 of because we we can't cover the same amount of 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:24.920 material and it it actually ends before we wanted to 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:27.520 end too, so but a lot of our our research. 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:29.720 It's a very well written article and we use a 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:31.400 lot of our research on this on this It was 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:36.160 written by Dean Takahashi for venture Beats and also has 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:40.440 been converted converted into a sixty three page e book 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:46.240 on Amazon's Kindle bookstore. So yeah, it's it's a very 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:49.320 deep look at the history of zincing. Now, we should 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:52.720 say this was written in two thousand eleven and a 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:57.160 lot has happened since then. But uh. In that article 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:00.320 they mentioned how Pinkas had said he had essentially been 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:05.640 fired or asked to leave every job he held earlier 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:08.280 on in his career, and then came to the conclusion 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.520 that what he needed to become was an entrepreneur, so 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.320 working for himself rather than working for someone else who 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:18.640 would eventually tell him to go away. Well, that's that's 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:22.120 what these are not my well that was my paraphrasing 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:24.479 of what he said, but these were his words, and 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:29.480 and he was probably being somewhat facetious, but essentially what 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:34.560 he was saying is that he has this desire to 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:38.760 create businesses, and so he struck out and started struck 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:42.760 out his inn, left the corporate world, not struck out 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:46.520 his inn with it, and then started to launch businesses 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:50.320 and several of them saw some early success. He h 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:54.839 he launched companies like Freeloader Incorporated. UM, he launched a 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:59.800 very very early social network called Tribe Networks, which did 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:04.600 not ultimately go anywhere, right, I mean, that was one 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:08.520 of those ideas where it actually preceded things like MySpace 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:11.719 and Facebook. So so he he was onto something. He 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:15.559 saw the he saw the horizon. He saw that social 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:18.640 networking could be a big thing. It's just that his approach, 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:21.280 perhaps it wasn't the right approach, perhaps it didn't come 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:22.920 at the right time. It might have been some sort 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:25.480 of combination of these and other factors as well. At 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:29.039 any rate, it did not take off like a MySpace 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:33.240 or later on a Facebook. No, No, that's that's true. UM. 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:35.120 And it's also interesting to note that none of the 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:40.760 companies that he had uh started before and he they're 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:43.840 conflicting reports about the number of companies that he was 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.560 starting and or involved with. Um, they're a handful, like 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:53.000 the ones that that we've mentioned. UM. Apparently too, he 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:55.280 has been quoted as saying that there were far more 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:58.520 failures than successes too, so he may have been involved 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:00.840 with more of them. But they're not naming companies. We're 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:03.760 not talking about somebody like you know, Trip Hawkins, who's 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:06.719 known for being a you know, he he was you know, 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:09.640 founder of e A and you know, got into digital 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:13.560 chocolate later. Um. But yeah, I mean, he wasn't known 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:18.240 as a gaming industry giant who started a new a 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:21.719 new gang of gaming company. This is his first gaming 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.960 for a and uh there's also some mild controversy about 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:29.480 the name Zinga. He has been quoted as saying is 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:35.719 named after his uh dearly departed puppy dog, bulldog. Yeah. 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:38.280 And then there's another story that I read on a 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.640 totally different article which said that he had a friend 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:46.039 who used the online handle Muzinga often people would just 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:48.359 refer to him as Zinga, and that he had named 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:52.720 his dog after this person. Uh, but that's sort of 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:54.800 the same story, but only yeah, a little yeah, a 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:58.919 little bit more of no tracing it back where does vend? 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:03.400 But anyway, he called the company's He hired on some 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:09.360 folks like h Eric Scheiermeyer, Michael Luxton, Justin Waldron, Kyle Stewart, 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:15.080 Scott Dale, Kevin Hagen, Steve Shuttler, and Andrew Trader. And 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.120 he had these guys together, and his idea was to 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:24.720 create these simple, uh easy to learn, easy to play 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:28.360 games because he was he kind of equated it to 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.640 going to a cocktail party and hanging out and just 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.400 chatting for a while. You know, it's a pleasant experience. 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:38.040 You don't tend to have super deep conversations at a 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:40.440 cocktail party unless you're going to a cocktail party held 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:44.080 by nuclear physicists. Um. Then in general, you tend to 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:47.160 talk about a lot of different things and you don't 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:49.360 get too far down into the service, but you can 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:51.600 have an entertaining conversation sort of the same thing he 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:53.920 wanted to do with these games, Like he saw the 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:56.840 games that other companies were making that were these very deep, 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:02.080 rich experiences, um, lots of work developing the world and 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.560 the physics or or the game mechanics, and he said, well, 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:07.880 you know that there is a place for that, But 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:10.880 what if we concentrate on games that were meant for 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:15.560 a more casual player, someone who you know, enjoys the 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:19.080 game mechanics, the gameplay is fun and has some sort 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:21.520 of reward system in place so that the player feels 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:24.480 like they should keep playing. But it doesn't need to 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:28.040 be as deep, and it doesn't have to exist on 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:30.960 its own. It doesn't have to be like, uh, you 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:32.480 don't have to go to a store and buy a 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:34.480 box that has a disk in it and bring it 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:37.720 home and and install it. It's something that could exist 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:40.720 on top of another existing platform, whether that's a web 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:44.560 page or a social network as it would turn out later, 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:49.400 or a mobile device. Yeah. Um, and uh. One of 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:53.480 the one of the earliest maneuvers that I think set 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:58.280 zinga apart from its competitors was, uh, it launched games 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:00.920 on my Space because that was, you know, the network 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:03.600 of choice, but it also it was hedging its bets 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:08.000 on the new competitor, Facebook. Yeah, back in two thousand 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:11.839 and seven. It's easy for us to forget now that 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:16.679 my Facebook has beaten a billion subscribers, right. Facebook is 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:20.839 now over one billion active subscribers or accounts. I'm betting 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:23.640 that some of those people have multiple accounts, probably just again, 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:26.640 but still that's a lot of accounts. Over five million 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:31.480 people have accounts on Facebook. Um. But yeah, yeah. Back 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:34.000 in the day, you know, my Space was dominating for 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.320 the longest time, and Facebook was only open to college students. 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:40.800 So for a while, a lot of people thought that 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:43.320 Facebook was going to be an also ran it was 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:45.959 never going to catch up. That, of course, is not 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:48.400 what happened. And and now we're in an era where 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:54.200 my Space is launching yet another redesign, dramatic redesign to 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:57.520 see if they can can can emerge from the dull 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:00.559 drums and perhaps become a player again, and it may 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:03.280 very well happen. It's easy to write off my Space 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:08.600 after its precipitous fall, but we've seen companies rise and 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.920 fall and rise again before, so you know, you never 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:16.599 say never at any rate. Like like Chris was saying, Zinga, 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:19.560 they were looking ahead and saying, you know, we want 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:22.800 to make sure that are what we're producing ends up 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:25.480 getting to as many people as possible. And that means 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:29.920 we can't just assume that one platform is always going 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:33.360 to be the way people access content online. And so 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:37.800 they started to create games that would work on Facebook. 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:41.160 And you know, Facebook had a very limited a p 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:45.000 I at the time, like there were an application programming interface, right, 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:51.120 So Facebook was not a platform for other programs early 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:55.400 in its existence. Certainly no it that eventually changed, and 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:58.960 they did experiment with it fairly early, but it was 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:02.680 you know, it was until fairly recently that it actually 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:07.760 became a viable platform for a company to launch an app. 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:12.760 But back in two thousand seven, Zinga released a game 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.960 on Facebook, and it was a social poker game, free 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:20.600 to play, Texas Hold Him poker. Okay, so Zinka did 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:22.719 a very smart thing here, because you know, this is 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:25.240 back when poker, which had been around for a very 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:28.079 long time, uh you know, just sort of sitting there 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.480 under the surface, waiting to be rediscovered. And that's about when, 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:33.520 you know, in the mid two thousand's, that's when people 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.000 were really getting back on board, which was really strange. 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:38.640 I mean it just seemed to come out of nowhere, like, uh, 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:41.560 suddenly there was this huge focus on poker in general 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:45.520 and Texas hold Him in particular particular. ESPN started showing 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:49.400 it and thought, wow, this has become a sport, and uh, 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:52.000 you know, there was a lot of interest. I mean 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:55.079 I've I've watched my share of World Series of Poker 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:58.560 tournaments and it is a very fascinating thing. And it's 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:01.480 you know, even by two thousands seven that that fervor 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:04.800 had not really died down. I would say that perhaps 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:08.200 today there's not quite as much interest and as there 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:09.440 used to be. I mean we used to see like 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:12.760 celebrity poker tournaments and on television all the time, but 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:16.560 it's still there's still an interest there. And uh, so 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:19.760 Zinga said, well, you know, let's produce a game that 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:23.120 is on a social network that's getting a lot of attention, 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:27.280 and let's do it a game that's actually popular in 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:31.480 the UH and the zeitgeist at this moment. Let's let's 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:35.480 combine these things and we're going to try and capitalize 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:39.200 on it. And it worked. Yeah, the UH. It's kind 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:42.400 of interesting too because this is where social gaming is 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:46.720 now pretty big thing, and so is casual gaming. Again, 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.439 it's sort of like poker these things. Well, social gaming, no, 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:52.320 but casual gaming has. It's been around for forever and ever, 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.640 you know. But the thing is, it wasn't the big 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:58.360 money maker that it is now, and it is thanks 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:02.319 in part two companies like zinga UM who found ways 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:05.320 to get people back involved with it. You know, you 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.320 play let's say you play a game on a social game, 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:14.200 a casual game on a UM you know, online somewhere. Okay, 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:17.000 so you've played it, and you know, after a couple 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:19.319 of weeks, you know that the interest kind of waynes 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:21.480 You know, I've played it. I love that game, and 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:23.559 you'll come back to it again in the future maybe, 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:25.920 but you know, it's you get away from it because 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:27.679 you lose track of you know, you have something you 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:30.080 gotta do on Tuesday night. Now on Wednesday night's kind 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:31.640 of packed two and after a couple of weeks ago, 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:34.400 I just don't feel like going back. But Zinga introduced 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:38.080 the the concept of adding poker chips to this game. 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.920 But this is one of those things that Zinga has 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:45.199 developed a reputation for acting in sort of weird ways 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:49.439 on this this Holdham Poker game. They they had a 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:52.920 thing where they you could, you could add more friends. Um, 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:55.440 you know, they wanted you to get poker chips and 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:58.280 if you would, uh you know, help them, uh you know, 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:07.959 download by downloading this key. What almost Yeah, this was 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.000 one of those things where actually this would come back 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:12.760 to hunt Pinkas later where he he essentially said in 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:16.640 a later interview that he made every horrible decision you 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:18.880 could make in order to make money. He was trying 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:21.640 to find different ways to generate revenue, and it didn't 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:24.960 matter what impact it would have on the user experience. 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:28.720 That's that's how people have interpreted those words. Now, whether 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:32.880 Pinkas really meant truly that he tried every horrible thing 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:38.520 or not doesn't really matter, because as people in later years, 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:41.720 uh said, you know, they just went ahead and interpreted 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:45.440 it as that and that became the reality, which is 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:49.440 kind of you know, just says be careful what you say, 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.760 because because later on, even if you're saying something and 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:57.000 you're exaggerating in order to make a point, people may 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:01.480 later take that exaggeration as the gospel truth. And whether 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.920 or not it was, that's how it's been interpreted. So yeah, 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:07.560 Pinkas said, we tried all these different things, and if 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:09.720 you downloaded this wiki, the idea was that you would 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:13.320 download this this tool and it would in the game, 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:16.240 you would end up being rewarded with more poker chips. 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:20.240 But again it was a negative experience for most users. 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:22.720 And and even Pinkas said, like, I couldn't figure out 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:27.560 how to remove this thing once I installed it. So uh, 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:31.880 there were other ways of trying to generate revenue, and 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:36.480 in fact, uh, the game was profitable for Zinga. They 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:39.160 ended up raising some money. It wasn't a whole lot 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:42.720 in the grand scheme of things, but it was important 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:45.720 to Pinkas that they they show that the company was 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:49.480 capable of generating revenue before he went out to seek 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:52.760 around of funding. He didn't want to go out and 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:56.360 hit venture capitalists without first being able to say, look, 0:15:57.000 --> 0:15:59.600 I can prove to you that what we're doing has 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:03.479 a play in this market. This company has a demonstrable 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:06.960 value because we're able to make money. Otherwise you're just 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:09.880 going up to catalists and saying, hey, look, this game 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:11.880 is really popular, a lot of people are playing it. 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:15.880 You should give me money. Like, until you can prove 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:18.320 me money, until you can prove that all those people 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:22.560 are generating revenue for you, it's really hard to get 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.480 the investors on board. I mean Twitter has seen this, 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:29.280 uh for for years. Since Twitter started, they had a 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:32.000 lot of users, but for the longest time, there was 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:37.720 really no revenue generating uh operation there. I mean there's 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:42.640 just very little, if any, and so uh you know. Essentially, 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:45.240 the way that to convince venture cabalists to invest in 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:49.560 something like Twitter is to say it's a huge, huge service. 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:53.840 Millions of people are using it and depending upon it. Uh, 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.120 the gap that it would leave if it went away 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:59.080 is enormous. Therefore it is valuable. All we have to 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:02.720 do is figure out the a of tapping into that value. 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:06.040 And that's enough for some investors. But Pinkus was like, no, 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:07.960 I want to make sure that I have a good 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:11.359 story to tell when I go and visit these venture capitalists, 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:13.840 and he did, and so in two thousand and seven 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:18.840 he actually had the first round of UH venture capital 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:23.000 and and was able to get investments. Then he was 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:26.560 also UM well back in January two thou because it 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:28.600 was late two thousand seven when we started pursuing it. 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:32.480 January two tho eight, they raised about five million dollars 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:36.440 from various venture capital funds and then UH six months 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:40.760 later they did a second round of fundraising and raised 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:44.200 another twenty nine million. And at that point they also 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:50.120 hired on someone as a sort of consultant named Bing Gordon, 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:56.240 who was a former chief creative officer with Electronic Arts. 0:17:56.800 --> 0:18:00.119 So here is someone who has had experience with the 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:04.000 major video game company coming on board with Zinga. UH. 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:09.320 The the the title most often given to Mr Gordon 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:13.959 is Consigliari, which, for those of you who are fans 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:20.080 of the Godfather trilogy will think, wow, so some sort 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:27.440 of quote unquote family consultant has joined on. Well, it's 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:31.439 it's kind of funny since Mafia Wars was the the 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:36.040 big cross platform hit for Zinga at that point, which 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:40.320 may may or may not be related. Yeah, and also 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:44.520 the the acquisition of Yoville, which is still you know, 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:48.200 moving along out there. They they have continued to support 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:51.679 that game. Now, Mafia Wars raises one of the big 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:56.879 big stories within Zinga, which is something that would haunt 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:01.159 them for years. Um a few short years that have 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:04.879 existed between when Mafia Wars has come out and today. 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:08.360 But one of the issues about Mafia Wars was that 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:15.680 people pointed out there was an earlier game called Mob Wars, which, um, 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:20.160 Mafia Wars bore a certain similarity to Mob Wars, some 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:24.800 would say, to the point of identity. This is another 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:30.159 one of those points which the uh Zinga detractors like 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:35.080 to make, um, which is and it's not completely unwarranted. 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:39.000 Um yeah that will I will neither say that it 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:42.760 is or isn't warranted to say that many of Zinga's 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:49.520 games bear a striking resemblance to other popular, successful social 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:56.439 network games. And and there are there the first right. Well, 0:19:56.560 --> 0:20:00.560 there have been people from Zinga, like former employees, who 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:04.720 have said that the message, essentially, according to these former employees, 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:08.400 was that find games out there that work, copy them, 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:10.960 and do whatever you have to do to be as 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:14.720 popular or more popular than the previous game. Now, whether 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:19.199 or not that was actually a directive within Zinga, I 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:23.000 cannot say. This may very well be the words of 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:26.040 employees who have uh, you know, an ax to grind 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:28.800 against the company, and they're saying whatever they want to 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:33.000 kind of disparage it. I don't know. I don't want 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:35.199 to pass judgment seeing as how I don't have that 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:38.199 direct experience. But there have been people who have essentially 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:42.240 accused Zinga, former employees who have accused Zinga of purposefully 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:45.439 setting out to copy other games and to use the 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:51.560 popularity of Zinga and its broad reach to essentially, uh 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:55.000 co opt those games from the original creators. Now, with 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:57.520 the case of Mob Wars and Mafia Wars, there's some 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:04.280 more murky issues there. Uh. The Zinga executives were saying 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:06.359 things along the lines of, you know, we were in 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:10.960 talks of actually acquiring Mob Wars, but then the guy 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:14.640 who designed Mob Wars learned about how Zinga was going 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:18.560 into selling virtual goods in order to generate revenue. Here's 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:21.440 another way of generating revenue with a free to play game. 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:26.840 So besides convincing you to download tools that you will 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:29.880 never get rid of as a way of generating revenue 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:32.720 by making a partnership with whomever is creating the tool. 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.679 Another way is to sell virtual goods that give you 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:40.560 some sort of edge or some sort of uh customization 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:45.240 ability within a virtual game for real money. And once 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:47.960 the guy from Mob Wars saw that, then he began 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:52.119 to incorporate those same features within Mob Wars. So Zinga 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:54.480 has said, wait, no, the guy from mob Wars was 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:58.520 copying us. So yes, our game is also about mafia warfare. 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:00.960 But our game was built a round this idea of 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:04.000 selling virtual goods. His wasn't until he heard about it 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:08.280 from us. So there's this sort of there's this crossfire 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:12.760 of accusations between the two groups, right, But in the 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:15.400 end you have Mafia Wars coming out, and there were 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:21.320 lawsuits about you know, infringing copyright, infringing intellectual property. And 0:22:21.359 --> 0:22:24.040 this was not the one and only time this happened 0:22:24.040 --> 0:22:27.440 to Zinga. That's happened, you know, in other with other 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:31.800 games as well, um including one that one of the 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:35.639 more popular games that Zinga pushed out was Farmville, and 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:39.400 there was another farm based game that again people said, 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:42.719 this bears a certain resemblance to this other game. And 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:46.720 again there are conflicting reports about whether or not the 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:49.479 people at Zinga were aware of that game, whether they 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:53.320 were purposefully trying to copy it, or if this was 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:58.040 just a parallel development issue. Um. And again we don't 0:22:58.080 --> 0:23:02.280 have the whole story right. One one one report suggests 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:06.680 that one of the venture capital fund UH fund managers 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:10.000 had said, or or I guess the people at the 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:12.040 venture capital firm had said, you know, why don't you 0:23:12.040 --> 0:23:16.600 do a farm game? Yeah, I don't know. It's it's 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:20.199 it's very difficult to tell. Um. And uh. You know, 0:23:20.200 --> 0:23:23.000 there are a lot of stories that fly around when 0:23:23.000 --> 0:23:27.080 you when you have this kind of corporate drama going on. Um. 0:23:27.119 --> 0:23:31.520 But yes, certainly, uh, certainly Farmville is another one of 0:23:31.560 --> 0:23:33.560 those games that that you know, came out at the 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:38.040 same you know, time frame, a little later than another 0:23:38.280 --> 0:23:41.040 very popular farm game, So you know, it's easy to 0:23:41.040 --> 0:23:43.879 make that comparison. Yeah, and uh. And also this is 0:23:43.920 --> 0:23:47.399 the time where if you were on Facebook during this time, 0:23:47.480 --> 0:23:51.239 you began to get irritated if you were not a 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:56.600 fan of these games at the numerous UH notifications you 0:23:56.640 --> 0:24:02.600 would received whenever your friends were raising sheep or planting corn, 0:24:02.920 --> 0:24:07.000 and you had learned that there field of corn needed 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:11.439 watering or whatever. Okay, enough anyway, So yeah, this was 0:24:11.840 --> 0:24:14.200 this was a time where people who were not fans 0:24:14.200 --> 0:24:17.920 of this game became haters of the games because their 0:24:17.960 --> 0:24:21.919 their Facebook notifications were starting to fill up with these 0:24:22.280 --> 0:24:26.080