Zynga: Xbox Live 'too small a demographic'

@Faceless Troll

I dunno...I was really looking forward to a Kinect enabled FarmVille and harvesting my cherry trees doing butt squats.

@Faceless Troll
No, no, I want to hear what your comment was going to be.

@DeadInside Well you know how Justin Bieber thought Nintendo was some rinky-dink company and said that using the Mario theme in his movie would be like easy advertising for them after he got shot down? This kind of reminds me of that. Except replace Bieber with Zynga.

"the amount of social capital that there is isn't going to be very high"
translation: there's not enough hipsters to play our crappy games.

@Faceless Troll He means it's too small an audience, cause 360 users are used to better games and wont accept shovelware like farmville.

@TheyDidItFirst
Exactly. I didn't read this as "the demographic is too small". I read this as "their demographic would never play our shit".

@TheyDidItFirst
@PointlessPuppies

You two are exactly right. I salute you sir.

Zynga makes games for people who don't actually like video games (i.e. people slacking at work or during a lecture). If you have a console, you probably like games too much to waste your time on anything Zynga makes.

@Apakal
People willing to pay a monthly fee for xbox live? Can't get much more stupid than that. Sounds like the perfect demo

@Cleric

So says the obvious PS3 fanboy. Troll on. Troll on.

@Apakal
What makes you think I'm a ps3 fanboy? Because I don't waste money on a service every other platform provides for free?

@Cleric

No one else provides Xbox Live for free.

@Cleric

Seven whole dollars. Try and be a little more petty, if you can afford it.

@Apakal $5 actually :P

And besides, No other company provides the amount of Service XBL does for free. I don't think there is a company out there stupid enough to waste a few 10 million a year upgrading a network so the users can continue to have optimal experience free of cost.


Hell Before PSN+ Sony had little-No motivation to upgrade PSN

@killer rin

The biggest benefits of XBL are friends lists, messaging, matchmaking, and gamerscore/achievements.

PSN does all of this.

Steam does it all well.

Both are free.

@haneybird

Steam lets me watch a movie with friends over netflix while also voice chatting? Will it then also let me leave during the movie because I got an invite to play a game with someone, let me stay in the voice chat while instantly adding me to the in-game party of the friend who invited me?

@Cleric

Have you used Wii's service.... Nuff said.

@sonicspike41

Yes.
You don't even need to use steam to do any of it!

@sonicspike41 Yes, yes it does. Your computer plays netflix, and you can have VC enabled in the Multiuser chat.

@sonicspike41
You talk through films?

Honestly there are some terrible features on XBox Live and that's one of them. Why would I want to watch a film with a friend online? That's... maybe I'm set in my old fashioned ways but I always thought spending time WITH people by my side to be the most fun. Faceless enemies on Xbox live games versus split Mario Kart matches? There's no comparison. Unless you're socially broken or have such a short attention span that you can't be away from X person for any period of time.

(My girlfriend went to university in another country for 5 years. But instead I just, you know, visited her and she visited me and made the most of our time. Damn you kids and your weird social fears.)

@sonicspike41

Xbox Live is mainly an online gaming service. In that sense it is comparable with Steam. Steam is free and Steam does notify you when friends are online while watching Netflix because Netflix is another application on the PC. And due to the freedom of using a PC, you can voice chat your heart out with teamspeak of skype or whatever floats your boat - all for free. The number of users who would want to do this rather than sit and watch a movie with their IRL friends is absolutely tiny and reserved only for the socially awkward. Most people are annoyed by those who talk during a movie anyways.

I'll never understand why live fans try to justify the service charge and mention useless value-added crap like talking during netflix. Netflix is free on PC and PS3 and many TVs/DVRs, etc. Facebook is free even on dumbphones. People just like to justify being ripped off because they're brainwashed into believing they are getting their moneys worth or something. Zynga might make throwaway crap titles, but the number of post paid Live subscribers is like a drop in the bucket compared to those who use Facebook. That's basically what it boils down to. I personally do not pay for Live because I hardly play games online and when I do I'll just use a free service on my PC or get the PS3 version so long as it's not worse than the 360 one.

@VeeDeeVee

One of my best friends lives in LA, another lives in Ontario Canada, and I live in Texas. Even at that all my other friends are busy with work, school, and their families and such, so getting everyone together happens maybe 2-3 times a year at most. I still visit my out of state friends as often as I can, but it's nice to be able to "hang out" even when we're in different cities.

It's also convenient to be able to watch an episode of Family Guy or King of the Hill at any time of day/night and laugh and make jokes with friends. What's the alternative? Book a flight just to watch a movie or show for 1 day? Do a 3-way call? XBLive is just so much easier and more convenient.

@arrrdawg

It wasn't until maybe a year ago that one of my friends got a PS3. Every single one of my friends (except the one in Canada, and a PC/Wii gamer in Austin) own a 360, and they all have Live. Of those I only know of 2 who actually play PC games. One only plays old-school FPS games, fighting games, old-school CnC games, and the rare modern title (the other only plays Civ & Sims). We don't often play games together because he's usually busy with school, and when he's not he's usually playing something I don't own or am not interested in.

Also, obviously I can do multiple things on the PC. That's like saying "you could voice chat on PS2 by using a phone." Sure there are outside applications and means of doing it, but generally the best solution is when things are tightly integrated and there's no need for outside applications. I could use skype to do a voice call, but not all my friends use skype, I could also use my laptop's built in mic for voice chats, but then it sometimes echos and picks up too many background sounds, and I could buy a decent headset, but where's the incentive?

My Xbox came with a headset included and despite not being the most amazing quality ever, it still works great and has been an absolutely essential part of my Live experience. I can't even tell you how many times I've had friends just randomly start a party on Live and just joke around and laugh about what's going on in their own games. It's pretty hilarious and it's nice that it just works without having to try to get everyone using the same program. It's like the battle between AIM and MSN. I've got friends who use both and if I wanted to have a chat with all of them, well, I can't. But since they do all own a 360 I can chat with them on there with amazing ease.

I'm not saying it's the best thing ever, or that it's worth the cost of admission for everyone, but for me it's great. Also, think about it like this: in older PC games servers are typically maintained by the hardcore fans. These servers/gametypes are often designed for only the longtime fans, with certain maps being chosen most of the time (UT and Face) or with tournaments. While I can see the appeal of that to people, that's just not for me. I'd rather have great matchmaking built in from the start and designed in such a way that each match starts off with the teams even, enough players, and that punishes people for team killing or quitting early.

@Deezul AwT
I know more than a handful of people who don't have TV.

@Apakal

Why does that get downranked? Do people have any clue how the post ranking system is supposed to work?

@Apakal

The world effectively is there for that reason.

@Deezul AwT There's always Google TV and Apple TV when they get their act together.

@Apakal Homeless and Amish people don't count

@Seven Hour War

By the way, I was being "sarcastic"

@Seven Hour War

Wait, so you weren't being sarcastic? Is that why you put it in quotes?

@Vcize

Because its hard to make text sound like Homer Simpson dictating an angry letter to Mr Burns.

@Prboi

Not enough Zeroooooooo's.

You got to think bigger and grander. Let it be 250 million and he might think about it. No promises however.

@Prboi

The reasoning goes that most of those 25 million have computers that are capable of 'playing' Farmville, so why worry about redundancy unless it offers something new, such as mobility.

"100%" on Facebook? I've never signed up for it and never will.