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by cuergas 5014 days ago
Let's assume the term whale is the same one that is used in casinos.

Do you believe that gambling is not an addiction?

I will defer to your knowledge on the history of online gaming. I'm not a gamer.

However I'm not sure you are doing much to advance the idea that Zynga is not making its money from capitalizing on addictive behavior that rises to the level of being unhealthy. Is that what you are saying?

That seems to be what the other commenter is arguing: the business relies on cultivating an (unhealthy) addiction. It seems like a simple notion. Can you prove him wrong?

What I do know is Zynga is not the type of company I would want to work for nor invest in. And their stock price is reflective of my concerns.

1 comments

You don't have to "assume", just do a search. It is still common knowledge and hasn't wafted into apocrypha so even asking people would be effective.

As I said earlier: source. I can also come up with argumentative gambits easily, but this is a subject that I actually focus on, so I'd like to see the source which gives you your confidence.

AFAIK your statements can only be supported by the most edge case and liberal interpretation of the data.

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"Zynga is.... capitalizing on addictive behavior". source? From what I know that is not how the freemium model works, so I am curious as to where you got this data. I am eagerly awaiting your response since it would be news to me.

Your comment where you seemed to put words in my mouth are disconcerting. Answering it would be giving it more grace than it deserves, since I never stated what you imply.

Your last statement is also strange. The stock price, If anything, shows that your assumptions are wrong, as the sin industry is always profitable, and zynga's stock is dropping.

Which as I said is because people got bored and moved on.

I was not trying to bait you into a trap by mentioning gambling. I only wish to point out that the choice to take a term from the gambling industry (one that profits from an addiction?) might be interesting. It might be suggestive. Or it might be pure coincidence. But it's an interesting choice.

You have mentioned "the data" a few times. May we have a source?

The stock price is an indication of Zynga's popularity with Wall Street. It has no bearing necessarily on what corporalagumbo is saying. And I never suggested it did. I mentioned it because it's one thing a casual observer (e.g. me) might follow, along with their disclosures to the SEC.