Zynga's Gaming Gamble

[isilzha]

Zynga's Gaming Gamble
Rebecca Buckman, 10.29.09, 12:40 PM EDT
Forbes Magazine dated November 16, 2009
Mark Pincus' games let Facebook users grow virtual corn and gamble with friends.

In late September a sizzling San Francisco Web gaming company called Zynga took the cloak off its latest creation: an online game that lets people open virtual restaurants on their Facebook pages. Competitors vie for points by tending to pseudo-stoves and cranking out orders of cheeseburgers and chunky fruit salads for animated customers.

It's no joke. Within a week 4 million people daily were grilling and chopping in Zynga's Café World. By late October 21 million foodies had played the game. Most critically for Zynga, a good number of them (Zynga won't say how many) were forking over real cash to decorate their virtual restaurants and buy provisions.

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I love Cafe World.

[Food Network Fan]

I have been playing that one too. I didn't know if I would like it at first, but I really do. I am a Face book Chef now.

[isilzha]

It seemed like a lot of the food I had made disappeared and now I never can make enough food.

[Food Network Fan]

It does seem like it's on high speed right now. I used to be able to make things and have them last all night and most of the morning. Now every time I go back to the game everything is gone.

[isilzha]

One night I had like 23,000 of one dish and the next morning I came and it was all gone.

[ibcheft]

more you play the faster they eat, with two servers you serve more people, I cut back to one server again. Food lasting longer, seems like they are eating it 10 times faster than I can cook it.

[Food Network Fan]

And these people eat a whole roast and a whole chicken in one sitting. Last night my internet went out and my fruit salad only had 1 minute left. I shut down the computer for the night. so a lost all of them. I was so mad.

[Food Network Fan]

I finally just had to close my cafe and work on making enough food before I let customers back in. I don't have enough time to devote to that game for making things constantly.

[isilzha]

I do have time to devote to making food for customers and I'm still unable to keep up.

[Food Network Fan]

I think I am going to start closing mine every night. Because by the time I get around to checking it I am always out, and I don't know for how long it's been out but my thumb up really drops.