For 'Zynga to become the Google of games,' it will take more than good timing

Zynga CEO Mark Pincus
Earlier this summer, The New York Times spoke with Zynga CEO Mark Pincus about his rise to social gaming domination and came to the conclusion that the Facebook gaming mogul, who is expected to take in as much as $500 million this year alone, could "become the Google of games." And they just might be right, but it's going to take Pincus to execute a lot more creative energy and finesse than those before him.

Pincus said to the New York Times that his chance to capitalize on social gaming was "like search before Google came along."

The creator of FarmVille is actually following Google's path pretty closely, coming into the social games market in the middle of its Wild West phase and taking a stranglehold of the market much like how Google blazed the trail for search back in the late 1990s. However, there is one key difference in Zynga's empire than those of the internet titans like Google, eBay, Yahoo, Amazon and Facebook: Zynga depends more heavily on those before it than any successful internet start-up has to date.

Find more on how similar Zynga's path to greatness is to Google's and how it is to stay on top after the break.

Zynga
While Pincus was right in thinking in 2007, "There has to be more than "a garage sale, a bookstore, a search engine and a portal," where would social gaming be without Facebook, Google or even Yahoo? All three of these companies have contributed such a great deal to Zynga's success to the point now that the company owes much of its reign over social games to them. Which is exactly why Pincus has made good friends with all three to stay in the game.

It's been rumored that Google has invested a considerable amount of cash in Zynga, while in return the company is helping them along in developing its imminent games initiative fittingly-named Google Games. Recently Zynga and Facebook came to end a squabble--one that could have easily ended in Zynga saying goodbye to its primary platform--that resulted in the gaming giant cosigning to the social network's new, regularized currency, Facebook Credits, for five years with Facebook seeing a portion of the profits. Yahoo just signed a deal with Zynga to host its lot of social games as well, which will surely boost the company's monthly user base by a considerable margin.

Much like Google, Zynga has also drawn the ire of the public recently with the "ScamVille" incident covered by TechCrunch and the San Francisco Chronicle revealing some of Pincus' harsher words to his former employees. While Pincus is experiencing the usual highs and lows of an uber-successful internet start up, he will soon--if he hasn't already--reach the point where the only room for growth is innovation. Google could have never been the top search engine in the world if it didn't tweak its game with Google Apps, a movement that has earned the company some of the most used web applications around like Google Mail, Blogger, Picasa and Google Docs.

It was these applications that put the Google name on nearly everything users touched daily, something Zynga should consider as it reaches that point in its life where traffic is dipping due to its platforms and users catching on. With the recent changes to Facebook, Pincus will have to do more than just expand to another platform to remain relevant.

FarmVilleLet's face it: Zynga's recent loss of 21 million players, wasn't solely due to Facebook cutting the amount of stories users posted to their feeds from social gaming. Part of the decline was because, quite frankly, at least some of Zynga's players realized that the company's current design philosophy has become a bit stale. FrontierVille has innovated on some levels of action-oriented gameplay, but we've yet to see an honest-to-goodness new design philosophy behind one of the company's games since its rise to power.

Every major company needs to bring about something new at some point to stick in the minds of the public (just look at Apple's product line). Look at Facebook, for example. There is no way the social network could ever become as massive as it is today without first opening its gates to more than just college students, then structuring itself to support games and apps and finally invading opening its arms to the internet completely with the Open Graph-- you can thank the Open Graph for the "Like" button underneath the headline of this very article.

Does Zynga have the potential to become the "Google of games?" Well, it's most definitely in that position, but it is up to Pincus to decide whether he wants Zynga to be more than just FarmVille and Mafia Wars and truly move the industry forward. Could Zynga's newest game coming this year be their answer?

Facebook pulls app directory, makes finding new games that much harder

Apparently, I'm one of the only people that actively used the App Directory on Facebook. Back in December, we brought you an in-depth look at discovering new Facebook games by using the directory, as you could browse applications based on popularity, or even date added. Now, though, the entire App Directory has been removed from the service, and with it goes your ability to use it to find new games.

AllFacebook noticed the removal as well, as they have pointed out a new blog post on the Facebook Developers Blog that explains a bit as to why the directory was ditched.

"Many developers have been confused about what it means to submit to the App Directory and frustrated by the length of time it took to get approved. As we have looked into this issue, we found that the App Directory drove less than 0.5% of all app installs while a significant number of app installs came as a result of Facebook search. Until now, to be visible in search, you had to submit your app to the App Directory.

Today, we are announcing two updates to decouple the search submission from the directory to make it easier for you to get your app into the Facebook search index:

1. We are removing the App Directory (in its current form) since it does not drive a significant amount of traffic to your apps.
2. We are creating a new, simplified way to get your app into the Facebook search index."

In short, this means that for now, the search bar has been given much more prominence in the app discovery process. Sure, sidebar ads will still likely trigger many more app installs, but now, app developers can submit their apps to the Facebook search index without approval, allowing users to get to them faster. Sounds great, right? Well, it would be, if search currently functioned properly.

I know I can't be the only person who types something like "FrontierVille" into the search bar to find a specific Zynga-run fan page, only to be greeted by user-created or even spam apps/fan pages that may have absolutely no relevance to what I'm searching for. If apps no longer have to go through an approval process to be added to search (and everything really is as open as it seems), doesn't this open the door for so much more clutter? Hopefully, this will all just be a temporary solution to some much larger feature being added to the site that will make finding new apps an enjoyable process, rather than a chore.

Did you ever use the App Directory to find new games to play? Would you like to see a one-stop-shop of sorts for applications on Facebook, where you could browse apps by genre, look at screenshots and the like before playing?

Facebook mobile social games will grow industry at once, CTO expects

When Facebook launched its mobile apps and games platform on iPhone and iPad, we were admittedly confused. But after Facebook CTO Bret Taylor (pictured) spoke with mocoNews, we have a better idea of what Facebook is getting at with "Project Spartan." According to Taylor, Facebook hopes to go 100 percent cross platform with Facebook Mobile through the mobile web, but its master plan goes deeper still.

"It really addresses some of the areas I've heard a lot of concerns about from mobile developers, and it plays to our strengths," Taylor told mocoNews. "For startups, it's very difficult to get their apps discovered. They have a honeymoon period in the app stores where they might be in a top 10 list and get a lot of downloads, but once that honeymoon period is over, discovery is very difficult. By integrating with these social channels in mobile, they can get discovered in really organic ways."

Facebook looks to bring the discoverability of Facbook games and apps to mobile. Sure, Facebook has the support of some major game creators with HTML5-based versions of Words with Friends, FarmVille and even wooga's new Magic Land. But at the moment, users have to search for these apps through Facebook's iOS app or mobile web presence--not exactly an ideal method for discovery.

It sounds like Taylor and Facebook look to grow the mobile and social games industries all at once across all platforms including Android, Windows Phone and Blackberry. To do that, Facebook is encouraging more developers to create HTML5 or native mobile app versions of their social games that Facebook Mobile can redirect to, which is about the only way we see this method working. However, with game shares (at least for non-gamers to see) almost entirely in the Ticker--which doesn't exist on mobile--where do the new social gamers come in?

[Via PocketGamer.biz]

Have you tried the current lot of HTML5 Facebook games yet? Do you think Facebook's mobile gaming strategy will work in the long run?

Disney-branded Facebook games coming in 2012, Playdom head says

Can we all just say, “finally?” During a panel named “The Rise of Social Games” at the f8 Facebook Developers Conference in San Francisco, Disney Interactive and Playdom head John Pleasants revealed that two to four Facebook games surrounding Disney xd brands will hit Facebook in 2012. The general topic of the panel was the fact that branded social games are taking off.

Pleasants was joined on the panel by Kabam CEO Kevin Chou, EA Interactive head Barry Cottle and Zynga CBO Owen Van Natta. Facebook director of games partnerships Sean Ryan moderated the panel with the preface that branded games will take over the Facebook platform. And he might be right: EA just released The Sims Social, Zynga will soon re-brand its new Adventure World with Indiana Jones and Kabam recently announced The Godfather: Five Families.

Playdom, which Disney acquired in July 2010 for a whopping $740 million, is ahead of the pack with two branded games on Facebook: ESPNU College Town and ESPN Sports Bar & Grill. Both games performed well, thanks to advertising through the ESPN TV network. While Disney owns the ESPN brand, notice how neither of those actually involve the insanely popular Disney characters we’ve come to love.

Honestly, we’re surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Consider this: Disney has its own cable TV channel through which it could, in theory, advertise whatever it wants. Pleasants didn’t get into why it’s taken this long for disney channel games to throw its cast of characters into Facebook games, but did reveal the power of the Disney name.

Gnome Town, which Playdom launched in the summer–and we enjoyed quite a bit–peaked at 530,000 daily players. But just plopping the Disney logo on top of the existing one made users more likely to spend in the game just through trust of the company’s name, according to Pleasants. “We think it’s an advantage, if you put game play first,” Pleasants said.

It’s comforting to hear this emphasized by these developers. (Kabam’s Chou shared the same sentiment.) Branded games on Facebook are OK in my book, but the last thing anyone wants to see is the genre become a branding machine.