Techcrunch: Zynga has long been famous (or infamous?) for its data-driven approach to game design. The company never focused on building strong character IP, or intellectual property, in favor of releasing games that had been thoroughly funnel-tested.
The latest high-profile company to suffer a data breach is the social game developer, Zynga. 218 million players were affected.
Cyrus Farivar of Ars Technica writes: Have you played any Zynga games lately? Yeah, we didn’t think so. And that’s exactly the problem: in two years, the social gaming company’s daily average users (DAU) has plummeted from 39 million to 21 million.
Kotaku: In select circumstances, until earlier today, the Zynga game Coasterville told users to email a certain address @themepark.com if something went wrong. The problem is, that email address didn't belong to a Zynga employee.
Instead, it belonged to Eric Mueller, who owns the domain themepark.com, which he uses for his web design firm.
Yeah, uhh, hi. Zinga? Yeah, umm...your games suck and your business practices are questionable. Every single game your company has ever created has been a blatant rip off of another company's franchise. I hope your bulldog chokes on its own feces and you're forced to change your logo to a rotting carcass. Thanks.
Oh this is the help line...riiiight...OK. How do I grow dingleberries on my farm?
Zynga and all the Facebook games. Really successful.
Hopefully this won't have a negative impact on the their impressive animation middleware.