Zynga avoids addressing problems yet again

Zynga slashes work force by a fifth, warns on bookings...

according to this article, Zynga has been struggling to retain players ...and because they can't, they are slashing their costs by letting 20% of their workforce go.

Such a crock, that.

Zynga has, for more than a year, been doing NOT ONE THING to retain players.

In fact, they have been basically kicking us in the arse and telling us not to let the door slam behind us on the way out.

In every game that I have every played of Zynga's, they persist in making the same errors over and over.

They have absolutely NO interest in listening to players or in understanding the reasons certain people play certain games and accommodating these various players.

And as of the last several months, they have trashed their one remaining strength area: customer service, adding it to the very long list of things that "we once did well but now can't be bothered."

People are NOT leaving Zynga's online games in favour of mobile games or multi-platform games the way Mr. Pincus would have the media and stockholders believe.

Mr. Pincus, apparently, also has no interest in actually paying attention to feedback from players.

We WANT to keep playing your games. A whole lot of us have invested a whole lot of time & money in our stupid farms or kitchens or frontiers or whatever... and we would like to keep right on playing.

But you've hired a whole bunch of developers that do not play the games and do not have respect for those who play the games they work on. And you've hired a whole bunch of managers, it seems, who also do not play the games and do not have respect for players. And hey, guess what? You've hired a bunch of customer service reps who do not play the games and do not have any respect for those who do...

surprise, surprise!!  It doesn't work.

This, I believe, is the single biggest reason for Zynga's failure to thrive.

Used to be that the people that worked there played the games (and therefore, had respect for players).

Zynga got too big for their britches. They got rid of the people that loved the games, and replaced them with people that didn't even WANT to work for Zynga - they picked up a lot of their ~talent~ through takeovers and buyouts.... and they didn't bother to make sure that those people were adequately supervised, and they didn't bother to listen to any of their players any more cuz hey, if you don't have respect for us, why bother to listen?

Critical errors that all trace back to poor management, NOT to mobile/multi-platform games. Pincus should quit lying to himself and actually read some customer feedback once in awhile. And he should REALLY quit lying to the stockholders stuck with Zynga stock.

Although I really don't feel all THAT sorry for y'all, actually .... got to research and see what people who actually use the product are saying before you jump on those IPOs, guys!!!  I could have told you it was a bad investment .... oh hey... I did, actually.

Class Action Lawsuit Filed against Zynga

Pomerantz Law Firm Has Filed a Class Action Against Zynga Inc. -- ZNGA

So many so very lousy decisions that have been made at Zynga over the past more than a year now... I, like many many others, am beyond frustrated with how persistently they have been focussed on nothing but shooting themselves in the foot (they apparently have a LOT of feet!) .... but seriously?


If you read the article about the class action lawsuit, you will see that they are basing their action on the notion that
 (i) the Company was experiencing a rapid decline in the number of users for its existing web based games;
(ii) the Company was experiencing substantial delays in launching new web based games;
(iii) the Company was failing to take advantage of the changes on Facebook's web platform;
(iv) the Company was unable to effectively monetize revenues from mobile devices through its web based games; and
(v) as a result of the above, the Company's financial statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.


Ludicrous! It takes seconds to use Google to find out how well (or not) Zynga has been ~retaining~ players. (It's not, btw - they've been leaving in droves and for very good reasons).


The forums for each and every Zynga game are wide open - you don't even have to play a single game or create an account to wander through and have a read. And of course, there are plenty of other blogs and wikis and fan sites and news articles and....   give me a break!


If potential investors couldn't be bothered to spend 10 minutes having a look, they deserve what they got.


If they didn't, well ...as my brother would say .... "wah".  So now you've figured out that you blew it and want to do something about it? How 'bout instead of wasting your time & energy on lawsuits that reveal that you didn't take any time at all to research anything before you jumped, you spend a few minutes demanding that Zynga smarten the hell up and listen to its players? Far more productive.


They do have, among their many offerings, some winners... or would-be-winners if they could just stop with the foot-shooting thing for awhile.


Fortunately, there is, finally, a tiny glimmer of hope that things might be about to improve at Zynga!


Apparently this John Schappert dude has been there about a year - and that is about how long things have been going really REALLY badly  - if he WAS the sabateur that has been so intently driving Farmville and other games in to the ground, perhaps things might get better now?


I'd be happier if they had not just demoted him, but got rid of him entirely  - and I think that they really do need some new blood in there, or at the very least, an advisory board of players for each of the games (that they actually LISTEN to)....


but maybe, just maybe......

Spending money on Facebook

Do you? 

I do...well, I have done....   up until this week, I have loved doing the tree farming thing on Zynga's Farmville....  had to have the trees, therefore had to have farmcash.

I won't make that mistake again.

It's quite possible to spend a LOT of money on facebook games - they make it easy for you ... but what they do NOT make easy is maintaining your account.

If you somehow breech their terms & conditions by having too many friends, or sending too many messages, or posting something they don't like, or ...well, whatever.... when they disable your account, you lose everything and they DO NOT TELL YOU WHY.

Nor do they give you any sort of explanation when you ask.

Nor do they respond to your queries.

They just shut you down, wipe you (and all your stuff) out and there you are... no pictures, no contact info for the people you were connected to, no past posts, and no access to anything you spend real money on.

IF it were true that only spammers or people who harrass others or whatever were subjected to this sort of treatment, that would be one thing...

but it's not...

it's all sorts of people who never deliberately did anything to deserve it.  Google it... you'll see that in far too many cases, it's people like my friend, who never did anything against the site's T & Cs as far as she knows...not once.

After it happened to my friend, I did google it.... and it makes me sick to think that all the time, energy and money I have invested on Facebook could be wiped out in an instant and I would be left hanging just as my friend is.....    no recourse .... just canned responses and lies.

Invest in Facebook? Or Zynga?  Are you out of your freaking mind?

I am done. 

Unfreaking Believable

Today, because one of my facebook friends has had her account disabled for no good reason, I have been googling ....


and getting more and more angry.


How is it possible that companies like Facebook and Zynga can just keep taking our money and then - without warning, without explanation, and without recourse, just wipe out our accounts, games, farms, whatever?


How long would YOU keep buying clothes, a car, furniture, whatever - if the people you buy it from retained the right to come and take it back for no reason whenever the hell they wanted - and you wouldn't have any way to argue it?


Any company that worked that way wouldn't be in business long, would they?


Would you buy stock in them?


Nope, me either....


and I'll no longer be spending any money on FC, either.....    so once my current cash is gone, I will be done with the trees.


Not a huge loss, anyway ... now that they are swamping us with 20 or more trees a week - some of which we can NOT buy ... it's impossible to keep up and impossible to maintain a complete collection anyway.


It is too bad no one at Zynga can be bothered to spend an hour thinking about how and why their players play.


It is too bad no one at Zynga can be bothered to spend an hour thinking about how to keep their loyal players loyal.


And it is too bad no one at Facebook can be bothered to redesign their warning/disabling system so that it is FAIR. Clarity around the cause of being kicked from the site would be a damn good place to start - but they also need a fair review process.


Both of these companies IPOs make me laugh - they ain't worth a pinch of coon shit given their current (lack of fair) business practices.


Who the hell is buying these stocks?

Hawaii Farm - Epic FAIL

Zynga released a new farm for Farmville - paid access started last week; free access was expected this week, but so far most seem to be still waiting..... yet another slow rollout, which, given the tight timelines and other nonsense associated with the (ridiculous, most of us hate them) quests, puts those who do not have the farm at a huge disadvantage compared to those that do.

If that was the only problem, they could perhaps be forgiven, but OMG have they blown it this time.

It's very appropriate that this new farm is the first that includes water critters like whales and jellyfish and SHARKS. Because yes, indeed, my friends, with the nonsense of this week, Zynga has clearly jumped the shark.

And ripped off and infuriated a whole lot of their still-loyal-through-all-the-crap-to-date customers.

The new farm uses coconuts as currency - so everyone, even those among us who have amassed millions or billions of coins are starting back at 0. And that was fine. BUT apparently some wing nut with NO sense at all decided that people were finding far too many ways to earn coconuts.

They released a special crop that one could only plant by paying - yes, again, not coins, FC, which costs real money - and which paid out coconuts. Oh no That would not do - they took it out of the market altogether and refunded the FC to those who had paid for it.

Imagine the nerve!! Spending money - yes, actual REAL MONEY - to start earning coconuts.

So, they axed the orchids - but at least they gave us our money back.

But that left us with trees and animals - also available for FC. So many people bought those items so that they could continue to earn coconuts, so that when they finally get the new farm, if that ever happens, they would be able to plow plots, expand, grow stuff.... you know... farm.

No no no! That will not do - everyone has to have an even playing field apparently - so they axed earning coconuts on any farm but Hawaii.

SO everyone that paid actual FC - you know, that stuff you get with real actual money? - got ripped off. No refunds this time.

Feels rather like a bait & switch to me... and it is no surpise at all that there are a lot of very, very, very unhappy ex-farmers out here....

But it gets better, eh?

Even those of us that paid to go to Hawaii early now have very very few options for earning coins. Basically, you can plant and harvest. CROPS. For now.

On other farms, you can push trees through ready orchards ...which means not only that those of us with rather iffy attention spans always have something we can be doing, we can be earning coins and growing trees for our friends.

But some customer service extra-ordinaire type decided that we should not be able to do that on the Hawaii farm because we might GASP earn extra coconuts by doing so!!

So now, when you move a tree into a ready orchard, the orchard is no longer ready. Each tree added adds time until the orchard will be ready.

I was not terribly impressed to find this out AFTER I paid FC to grow the damn things to 100% so that I could harvest them.

SO not impressed, Zynga.

Oh, and the other stroke of brilliance - there was one tree that actually produced a fair number of coconuts - 900+ I hear.

Rather than adjust the payout level to something more reasonable, they totally trashed the tree - both the level one and level two gum trees now grown not rainbow gum - they grow Jaca trees. A totally unrelated and not nearly as attractive tree.

Every single person who paid - yes, REAL MONEY DAMMIT - for the level 1 tree so that we could grow the level 2 tree for ourselves and our neighbours - deserves a refund.

Same for those that purchased any of the other formerly-coconut-producing critters, trees, etc.

And if you are not yet convinced that Zynga has jumped the shark with Farmville and deserves to fail (sorry to anyone that actually has invested in their IPO - should'a done some more thorough research first, eh?) ..... the rip offs are apparently not the end of it ....

Now, to further irk and irritate their players, apparently when one does get to the Hawaii farm, you get to start out now with 14,000+ coconuts the way the first paying customers did... or 5,000, the way those who started a bit later did.

From what I'm seeing in the forums and on the feeds, people who go there for free today get to start out with a big fat goose egg. Zero coconuts. No way to earn them, none to start with (can't even farm) - and when you harvest the pens you can build there - have to build there, if you are tyring to do the quests - you are going to get coin, not coconuts.

How is this supposed to be fun, Zynga?

Be damned if you're getting any more of my real actual money. Ridiculous!

Zynga stock prices

Oh look.... what a surprise... Zynga's stock is dropping in value and is now down to $8/share.

Duh.

The only surprise to me is that anyone actually invested in the first place. I mean, come on? Who looks at a company, sees that it has already burned through millions of customers and is now on a consistantly downward trend in every way that counts - daily users? monthly users? profits? .... and thinks "hey...I wanna get in on that" ?

I'll tell you who - other people that missed school on the same day that the Zynga folks did... the one where the teacher explained that it is easier (and cheaper) to keep the customers you have than it is to get new ones all the time. S/he probably also mentioned, I would think, that it is also easier (and cheaper) to get new ones that it is to get the old ones that you irked into leaving back.

I don't play any Zynga games but Farmville so I can't talk (much) about those - I have tried a fair number of them though, and in every case, left for similar reasons... the same reasons that people talk about all the time in the forums, on their facebook walls, and so on ... too many quests, too much tedium, too much begging required. The reasons we say to hell with it and shut down our cafes or fishtanks or pioneer village or cities or whatever are not secrets - but they might as well be, cuz Zynga certainly doesn't have a clue.

The ~funny~ thing is that the very same (obnoxious) things that caused so many of us to quit all of Zynga's other games are now being ported right into Farmville..... We stayed with Farmville because it was different - it allowed us to do things our way, to make our own decisions about where to put what, what to plant, etc etc...

Now....? Not so much.

Now we have quests - complete with obnoxious icons on the side of our farms that won't go away unless and until the quests are completed. So we all end up being told what to grow, in what order, and how many of each we need... what critters to harvest... what crafts to make... what to collect.... hello....? Zynga...? We loved Farmville because it allowed us to decide.... not you.

And we have buildables. Each with their own myriad of stupid building materials required. It wasn't bad enough that our boards, nails and bricks are no longer good enough to build all the crap they demand that we build (and if you try to bypass it, they'll remind you over & over & over) - now they change the building materials half way through, also. So you wind up with bunches of totally useless building parts halfway through each building project.

It really isn't rocket science. All that is required is a basic understanding of how farmville players are different from other game players.

And again ... no secrets... the forums are FILLED with discussions that clearly state what is needed, what annoys us, and what is causing so many to first, stop coughing up real money for farmcash and ultimately to stop playing altogether....

We want shared storage. WE want to decide what theme(s) we want to use on each farm, and what items belong there. It irks us to have a whole bunch of ice, snow, Christmas items that we can't move into Winter Wonderland. It irks us to have had to place things on Winter Wonderland (for the stupid quests we didn't really want to do in the first place) and now not to be able to move them to the farm where we DO want them. My jingle bell horse belongs on my main farm with my other horses. That is where my horses belong. MY choice, dammit... and the fact that you won't let me do it my way is a constant irritant.

We want rotatable buildings (and pens). We are control freaks, okay? We like to decorate and to have choices. That's why we play Farmville. A building that can't be turned restricts our decorating options and annoys the hell out of us.

We like pretty, we Farmville players.... we gripe about things like foals that are as big as or bigger than their parents, gaps that can't be filled caused by a lack of attention to footprints around things like ponds and so on, and moats, tracks & fences that can't be properly lined up.

We are collectors.... we like to have ALL of....whatever.... for me it is trees; others like mastery signs, horses, sheep...what the hell ever.... you have created a game that appeals to collectors ... and a great many choices of things one might collect .... what would then possess you to destroy people's collections? How many times do we have to tell you that once you break a collection (by wiping out people's limited edition crop gardens with your stupid turbo boost and refusing to fix it, for example, or by making a tree available only to those able & willing to donate to a particular cause; or by putting horses into the mystery game, or... how many ways HAVE you found to break our collections, Zynga? How does it benefit you?) ...anyway ... once the collection is incomplete, it is no fun any more and people find it much much easier to walk away .... to stop buying ....and again... to stop playing.

And hey...did I mention that we are control freaks? We do not care to be ignored, lied to, disrespected, or treated like naughty children for having opinions.... not in the game, and not in the forum either.

Zynga had a good thing going... but they spent most of 2011 shooting themselves in the foot .... over and over and over again.... and refusing to listen to their customers.

At least in Farmville... I'm guessing, though, after looking at the stats for a few other games, that this lack of respect, concern and basic understanding of what motivates us goes far further than just FV.

No surprise at all to me that their stock price is heading in the wrong direction... in fact, I think it is exactly the RIGHT direction.

Farmer Appreciation Week

So .... Zynga has decided to have a week long double mastery event - with daily surprises, even.

I'm so excited.....NOT

Unless the surprises include some of the following, there really is very little point to the whole thing, in my opinion. If you actually appreciate your farmers, Zynga, how about:

1. fixing quest requests so that when people post a request it actually shows up! Or at the very least, adjust the deadlines to account for your glitches. And speaking of quests (and other new features), how about you assign someone to test them BEFORE you release them?


2. slow down! There is a fine line between offering enough new things to maintain interest and overwhelming - and you've clearly crossed it. Farmville appeals to a lot of collectors - trees, horses, water features, masteries, whatever... most of us collect something - but when you swamp us with too many somethings - or when you do really dumb things that prevent us from getting one or more of what we collect - our collections get ~ruined~ and then we stop collecting. How's that working out for you?


3. get real re: Lighthouse Cove expansions. Even those of us who can afford to buy FC are for the most part not willing to pay ridiculous prices for a measly 10 more plots


4. while you're at it, fix prices to be a/ reasonable and b/ fair. It is neither reasonable or fair to expect some players to pay 4x as much as others for the same damn thing. They are PIXELS, y'know.


5. removing EC access, and the EC quests so that some players can't get there at all, and others have no way to ever earn shared storage between farms was STUPID. Fix it. Now. And while you're at it, give us shared storage with LC as well


6. Customer support. This is the one area you show a great deal of potential - sometimes - but the no live chat for nonpaying customers - especially when many of the players who get that BS message before being rudely kicked from the service actually are paying customers - is ridiculous! It is also aggravating when everyone who contacts CS for the same issue gets told something different depending on who they happen to get. Do you people not talk to each other?


7. Stop by the forum once in awhile. Read the feedback that is right there available for you and pay attention! The players who bother to post are a small minority - but they are reflective of the majority and if you actually bothered to ~appreciate~ them and hey, here's a thought - how 'bout you actually talk to them once in awhile too! - you would not have lost MILLIONS of players already. (did y'all miss the class where they explain that it's easier to keep a customer than to keep getting new ones or to get the already pissed off ones back?)

7 days, 7 suggestions - tackling those would go a lot further towards showing some appreciation for your customers than a week of double mastery will, in my opinion.

Did I miss anything? Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.

Price Testing - again

Seriously ...that's what Mr. Live Chat called it when I contacted them to complain that I was unable to buy a candy corn tree in my market.

How is it price testing if some people can pay the stOOpid exorbitant price of 8FC while others like me can not buy it at all? SO IRKED!!!

That does not even make sense!

If it is not available to buy I am not going to buy it - there... are we done ~testing~ now?

Can I pretty please with sugar and a cherry on top have a candy corn tree now?

HOW many flipping feet do you HAVE, Zynga? Are you almost done shooting each and every one of them? How 'bout you hurry it up, already?

In other news, they have started to offer an expansion in Lighthouse Cove for coins. Of course, everyone that paid actual FC for it is now irked. I did not so am not - but it does irritate me no end that there is no consistency - once again - in how many neighbours one must have to expand for coin.

Some people in the forum are reporting that they need to add more than 30 neighbours to expand ... others, not a one ... and there seems to be no rhyme nor reason for the difference. Me, I only need to add 1 - from 165 neighbours to 166. But I am not inclined to go so much as one itsy bitsy teeny tiny bit out of my way for Zynga any more.

I am IRKED...and then some.

Still steaming over the 4x increase for biplaning orchards.... and now no candy cane tree in my orchard (I am, once again, not worthy).

Know what you can do with your expansion, Zynga? And your quests? And even your 40% off FC offer?

Same thing you can do with your game.

You obviously do not value your players' loyalty - so why should I have any?

Wow--- just how stOOpid do you think we are, Zynga?

Very, obviously!

Just looked at Bonus Quest #2 for the Lighthouse Cove (aka Cash Cove). In what universe does spending 30FC to ~upgrade~ to the next size farm - with a whole 10 extra plots!!! - to earn a tree that I can buy for 7FC (and already did) - make sense?

Only in one of Zynga's making.

In other Farmville news, they have, as of today, removed the $1FC purchase offer - so now, if you want to get the special ~free~ gift with your FC purchase, you'll have to buy $5 worth. Uh ... okay.... will get right on that, too!!

You guys have LOST it - and honestly, at this point, I think that if you ever do get your IPO off the ground, anyone that invests in you is NUTS!!!!

Again with the price-gouging

More new trees this week - and again, different players, for no discernable rhyme nor reason, have different prices.

The bur oak is - for me, 8 FC. But other players can buy it for 4, 10, or even 12FC.

So - this test is what? To see exactly how stupid/addicted to our trees we are?

Newsflash - for those of us who are serious collectors, pulling this crap only results in people walking away.

If I can't (won't) be able to keep collecting the trees, I won't bother to continue playing - and I am far from the only one. Check out the forums, why don't you?

How is this good business? How does it support your IPO?

The fact that you are so intent on shooting yourselves in the foot (how many feet DO you have?) is not likely to impress investors (speaking as a potential purchaser of stock).

Ridiculous!

Live Chat - For premium players only?!

Well - that is disturbing!

Apparently as of today people are being kicked off Live Chat (without being helped) for not having spent enough on farm cash? Or not buying recently? Or....? The criteria is not yet clear - but oy!

Way to go Zynga!! The ONE THING that you were doing so well and now you're turning THAT into yet another way of pissing off players?

Unbelievable.

I guess they have SO many customers, they don't need to worry about keeping them.

I seriously hope any potential investors are doing their due diligence. This company is seriously intent on self-destruction.

A few updates ... orchard text; live chat vs email support; ~super~ orchards

Orchard text has been (FINALLY) fixed! That makes me very happy, as it means that I am once again able to waste altogether too much time mastering trees and growing seedlings to share with my friends.

Had occasion to use Zynga's support yet again this week. I bought two of the new magic peach trees which are very cool, (but I am still waiting impatiently to get my hands on an as yet unrealeased except for in feedlings which I have no luck with, mossy trees) - and the first time I attempted to move them, one disappeared!

I had no luck getting Live Chat then, so eventually got frustrated and sent in an email request for support. They responded in less than a day - BUT the trees and farmcash the email said they had given me were not in the account. I eventually discovered that - even though I had made sure to contact them from the problem account, the fix had gone into another also played on this computer. Second time they've done that; I have no idea how it happens... I guess sometimes they just don't look at the UID in the form.

Anyway, I was going to just gift a replacement tree from that account to the correct one, but then I decided to try again to get live chat. Took about 20 reloads, but did eventually got through.

As always, Live Chat was great - even though I told her that they had actually given me 2 extra trees & 25 FV$ (but in the wrong account) she cheerfully fixed it in the correct one as well. In fact, she surprised me! She had told me that she was replacing the tree and putting in 50FV$ - but when I went to move the tree from the gift box I found not one, but ten! A very nice surprise.

I still haven't bought any ~super~ orchards, and probably never will - but they have dropped the price (for everyone, as far as I know) to 30 FV$ to upgrade them.

Unfortunately, though, they still have not apparently got the message that those of us who are never offered the low prices (and/or the good deals on FV$ and bounty packs and so on) are becoming increasingly irked and insulted. Has been quite a lot of frustration in the forums about the price spread on some of the new fairy critters.

Those defending Zynga (who are no doubt at least some of the time among the favoured players) often point to these sort of pricing experiments as being akin to in-store pricing experiences - but to me, that is a ridiculous argument.

First of all, I highly doubt that most stores do pricing experiments where an item is priced at such broad variances. I should pay > 3x as much as my kid for this item?! Seriously?

And second, if I go into a store and pay $1 for a bottle of pop, and you go into your store and pay $0.75, the chance that either of us is ever going to know and have occasion to be insulted and irked about it is pretty slim. We do not have the same sort of relationship with the store OR with each other as we players do with Zynga. They REALLY need to rethink their approach, as they ARE seriously damaging customer loyalty and trust.

Which should be painfully obvious to them - if only they actually paid attention to the forum discussions and to the cranky people that contact customer service when they discover they have been ripped off.

It is nice that they fix it for those of us cranky people who do contact CS whenever we discover that we have yet again been ripped off - but how many people do not actually bother and just stayed irked?

Given the ongoing loss of Farmville players (and presumably, income) - and all the talk of IPO offerings - you would think that such feedback would be considered a little more important - and a lot more quickly - than it is! Every time I see anything about the IPO I shake my head. What company in their right mind shoots itself in the foot over & over (throttle? limits? price gouging?), loses millions & millions of customers, and THEN tries to go public?

I must be missing something - me, when I research a stock, I'm looking to get in when they are growing, not tanking.