[samstave]

Too be fair, zynga is a parasite on facebooks infrastructure. So while syngas direct development costs are low, the real cost of developing what was required to provide zynga the platform is over a billion. (considering Facebook stated their network inf investment has been 1B)

Also, zynga is an idea thieving bandit of a company - so their costs are also far lower due to their hiring people that can copy as opposed to the thought leaders who would have come up with original content.

But if the only metric you choose to measure them on is revenue to expense, then by that myopic unethical lens - sure they look good.

[aaronblohowiak]

> zynga is a parasite on facebooks infrastructure

They are facebook's largest advertiser, IIRC. Additionally, I believe facebook has invested in zynga, so the relationship is more symbiotic than parasitic. I am anti-zynga, but its important to be accurate in our critiques.

[samstave]

I agree that it is symbiotic, but they are still a parasite :)

[Tangurena]

Ahh, no. Sales of credits to fund RMT in games like Zynga is where Facebook's largest growth in revenues come from: about 30% of the sale price of the credits goes to Facebook. Games like Zynga's make FB users more "sticky" and spend more time on the site which helps raise advertising "hits".

[samstave]

In what way does that refute what I said: that Zynga is wholly dependent on Facebook's infrastructure.

This doesnt mean they dont have their own infrastructure - but it is different than an MMO company like SWG/WOW that have their own infrastructure for 100% of the game.

The point made was that Zynga is doing what MMOs do at far lower cost. I said the cost was offset because Facebook foots the bill for the platform on which Zynga depends.

[nl]

Too be fair, zynga is a parasite on facebooks infrastructure.

I believe Zynga provides more of Facebook's profits than any other company.

Zynga could easily argue that Facebook is a parasite by profiting from all the people who want to play Zynga's games.