On: Anonymous Is Going After Zynga For Mistreating Emp...

[andrewljohnson]

Can you say what product you are working on? How would you describe the game design philosophy for your team, or Zynga overall?

I think when people say Zynga is evil, they largely point to three things:

* spaminess of the games

* propensity to copy other products rather than come up with original ideas

* tuning of games to maximize revenues from individual players

Do you think these are fair judgments about Zynga's methods? Is Zynga more guilty of these tendencies than other gaming companies?

[Alex_r → andrewljohnson]

As a hardcore/indie gamer myself, I understand that a lot of hardcore gamers are turned away by Zynga.

But I'm not Zynga's target audience, and that's okay. And there's a lot of sympathy for your point about the "spaminess."

However, going from spammy/over-monetizing to evil has always seemed a tad dramatic to me.

[krickle → Alex_r]

The games are designed to both get people addicted, and to get your friends involved by manipulating social gift reciprocity obligations. I think we'd have settled for "awful" up until the clawbacks, now we know the leadership at Zynga is sociopathic at best. Maybe not evil, but totally unscrupulous, totally unsympathetic.

[jlgreco → Alex_r]

I think the leap from "spamminess" to "evil" is helped by those other two things he pointed out.

[motoford → andrewljohnson]

I think the reasons you list are why people really dislike Zynga, but those things alone are not enough to explain the pure hate people have for the company.

The reason I think they are evil is the way they treat their employees, beginning with forcing developers to give back stock before their IPO. This latest stunt is just piling on.