[waterlesscloud]

Excellent article. The current Zynga model is certainly unsustainable. They've hired Brian Reynolds, which hints at deeper games to come, but what they're doing right now will be ineffective in 6 months.

One thing I've been coming to terms with- just because something makes no sense long term doesn't mean that it's not a valuable course to pursue short term.

If, and it's a big if, Zynga can reinvent itself in the next 6-9 months, then this initial phase was brilliant in that it gave them the resources they needed to move on to real domination. If they don't reinvent themselves, a few people will have made a lot of money, but nothing permanent will have been built. A real opportunity will have been missed.

But they can't keep on the same path, it just won't work a lot longer.

[bd]

Simplicity is strength, not weakness.

There are already more complex, deeper games on Facebook, but they are orders of magnitude less popular than these simple Zynga games.

If you go deeper, you go niche.

BTW it's similar for game themes (independently of game mechanics) - more mainstream you go, more potential players you can get.

Just check Facebook games charts. They are dominated by down-to-earth topics - farms, restaurants, aquariums, pets, etc.

[pchristensen]

The whole point of the article is that they can get away with simple games and common themes because of Facebook's insane growth. Facebook games are the first games a lot of people have ever played on the web. Once this first wave of new players is on, they will become more demanding and savvy about what games they play, and these "veteran" game players are more choosy in playing and recommending games.

[bd]

Yeah, but that's wrong assumption. This is no one-way street.

I'm counter-example myself. I actually reverted from being hardcore game player to playing mostly simple web games.

And I sure know others which went this way - from AAA titles to Zynga.

Here I said it. Most "real" gamers would be probably too ashamed to admit it :).

And about growth - I'm not sure what is the cause and what is the effect. In non US regions games themselves could actually be the driving mechanism for Facebook growth:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=989607

[dwynings]

At the end of the day, startups must "Adapt or die."