This is sure to be down voted but here I go anyway...
Doesn't this just indicate that having distribution is the most important element of the gaming market? It isn't enough to have a great game or design if you can't win at distribution.
Not necessarily - though there is a lot to be said about what distribution and marketing can get you. Look, however, at games such as Minecraft, Q.U.B.E., Terraria, SpaceChem, Bastion and many others; granted the last 4 now have distribution on Steam, and Minecraft has become a household name, but without great game design and having something the actual gamers want, they wouldn't be where they are now. The biggest risk is that your game, if not picked up quick enough, can be cloned by someone like Zynga and distributed like crazy - so make sure your product is better and always evolving - don't be bullied around.
It's an is/ought thing. For years, I hated that marketing/sales/distribution beat out production/quality consistently. It just seemed wrong.
Yet, that's how it is. Adjusting and knowing that is empowering... "build a better mousetrip" isn't enough by itself; you also need to understand and connect with people who would benefit from the mousetrap, get the word out about the mousetrap to those people, and then find a sales/delivery mechanism so those people can buy the mousetrap and have a mouse-free life.
Not at all. You can see this theory played out on sites like Armor Games, a platform where a new game launches directly in front of a huge audience and in its first days either:
- it'll get a crap rating and 10s of thousands of plays
- it'll get a great rating and hundreds of thousands or even millions of plays
Ultimately they succeed or not based on their own merit, having a ton of traffic to throw at them just helps it happen faster.
What about the great games that never get onto Armor Games? You could have made the best game in the world but if you don't know how to get it on Armor Games or similar sites you won't have a business success, in fact the crappy game that did get on Armor Games will have done better. In your example Armor Games has all the power.
Your question was is distribution enough and Armor Games highlights that it's not because they have tons of traffic + transparency on the plays and ratings + new games are given an equal opportunity.
As far as succeeding without a huge platform behind you... that's kind of a different argument, it happens a lot to a limited extent, a little to a significant extent, but most of the time games just fail. Same as startups.
The notorious bandit Willie Sutton was finally apprehended, and as he was being led away from the courthouse in irons an outraged woman asked him WHY he robbed all those banks. "Because, Ma'am" he replied "that's where the money was."
Distribution works the same way. It's where the money is.
I'm not going to downvote you (disagreement isn't any cause for a downvote) but what you're saying still rubs me the wrong way. Yeah, Zynga's success does show that distribution counts for the majority of gaming success but you say it like what they're doing is okay. That came off to me like "Yeah they steal, but whatever it's the distribution that counts anyway so it doesn't matter who they rip off". At least that's what I heard. Is Zynga really deserving of what they have? I don't care how much logic and economics you throw at the issue, we're dealing with people here. People aren't markets, margins, profits, distribution channels or anything else. They're flesh and blood and what Zynga does is not okay. The guys who they're ripping off are the ones deserving of all the money Zynga is making off them.
This doesn't just indicate that great game design takes a back seat to distribution, it promotes the idea that the fine line between plagiarism and inspiration doesn't exist and that they're one and the same. Businesses that operate like Zynga aren't new but what's new, at least to me, is seeing such a business, despite the criticism it gets, become such a media darling. They had Pinkus on the Today show or some other morning show the other day making him look like he's some genius mythical Zuckerberg type. Businesses with the rip off model are often successful as there's a sucker born every minute but I've never seen one get praise like Zynga as if they're doing something that's one iota innovative.
I don't agree ethically with what Zynga's strategy is but I would not go so far as to say...
"The guys who they're ripping off are the ones deserving of all the money Zynga is making off them."
Zynga outsourced being innovative to the market and focused their resources on building distribution. You have to work hard to build distribution and it is an important part of a business strategy. It is not enough to just design a great game and expect it to be a huge business success. It might be a huge creative success but that is different from being a business success.
Lets use Mcdonald's as an example (I am not a fan of their food but I think they illustrate a business that is built on distribution not quality product). People were making hamburgers before Mcdonalds, no innovation in the product. The value of the Mcdonalds business is in the vast network of restaurants that they built to deliver their product. Does the person who made the first hamburger deserve all the money that Mcdonalds is making? I would say no.
I think a lot of people on HN ignore the importance of the simple fact that distribution is a competitive advantage in business and it is something you have to work hard for. I think Zynga is taking advantage of a resource they worked hard to build, their distribution.
This model would leave no incentive for anyone to innovate because the big bullies will take your lunch anyway.
Hence, intellectual property protection (or whatever legal term is right here).
If the current framework can't penalize Zynga for ripping off someone else's hard work, I would say the system is broken for this use case at minimum.
There's a line between inspiration and stealing, and I would say Zynga isn't on the right side of such a line in this case.
Apple, when launched the iPod (could take many Apple examples but this is from the letter) didn't make a more-or-less copy of an existing successful product. Took inspiration from the idea of portable digital music and took it to the next level. Significantly better product.
Google didn't copy Yahoo!, seriously now! They took the idea of searching for pages and took it to the next level. Significantly better product.
To say they copied is like saying anyone who invents a new dish has copied the very first cooked meal in history. Seriously? People have just gotten amazing at gaming the system than playing the game.
Cloning a game idea is totally valid form of doing business.
No one gets to have a monopoly on an idea (i m also against patents). Distribution (or more correctly, marketing and operations) is one of the more difficult, non-game-design related problems a gaming company faces, and all else equals, the company that profits is the one that can scale.
I feel like you are just critizing zynga simply because they got successful based on game ideas that others have failed to profit from. I don't see that as a problem - this is what nature intends, and the fittest survive. Those who makes the money deserves it.
I'm not arguing validity. Yeah, it's valid, no one really committed a crime here but what they do is shady. It's clear as day. They look for what's successful, clone it, and profit from someone else's idea. Zynga got where it is today by luck. From the beginning they copied - practically plagiarized and do an awful job of hiding it - other successful games for profit. Any other one of those game developers could have been as successful as Zynga (and perhaps they might not be rip off artists thereafter) but because Zynga got the resources others didn't they gained success they didn't deserve. I liken it to economic classes in a way. The smart poor kid doesn't really have as much social mobility as you'd think whereas the dumb rich kid will be a success because he was born into wealth. Zynga won because of money, not because of merit. Legality, validity, etc. are all points I can't argue with but what Im really trying to say is that we often think so robotically that we miss the bigger picture. This is about right and wrong from a human perspective, not a purely logical one. I understand that tons of games are ripoffs of each other but just look at Zynga's games and tell me they even tried the tiniest bit to make them different? Then Pincus says he wants to make them "higher quality"? How? Does branding someone else's game somehow magically make it higher quality? It might be valid but it's still not right.
Part of what makes social gaming "higher quality" is the number of people you can play against. You could make the argument that a Zynga game is "higher quality" because it has more people playing it (due to better distribution).
It's the same thought of "It's execution that matters, not ideas" that rubs me the wrong way too -- a lot of VCs and successful entrepreneurs seem to promote this saying.. justifying (to themselves) of these less than ethical behaviours.
