Gamasutra: "A new analyst report has found that user growth for recent games from social games giant Zynga has been lacking, with certain recent releases already showing signs of peaking in player numbers."
Layoffs are expected at NaturalMotion, the studio behind Star Wars: Hunters, as Zynga reviews operations and focuses on optimizing its mobile game portfolio.
Vince Zyle writes "Star Wars Hunters is a really fun game! It’s not as good as other Star Wars games like Star Wars Battlefront 2 but coming from a developer like Zynga who worked on very underwhelming and low-quality titles before, this is a major upgrade.
There’s not much objectively wrong with the game aside from the work needed to make visuals smoother during animations. That’s one of the biggest issues at present alongside frame drops that occur from time to time when there’s too much going on which isn’t too bad but certainly noticeable.
In conclusion, Star Wars Hunters is a game for arena shooter fans who are looking for an action-filled game. Some of the other issues will hopefully be ironed out with future updates."
The acquisition of Zynga by Take-Two Interactive might become the video game industry's version of the AOL Time Warner merger.
I have to give props for the use of Electric Boogaloo reference. I don't think many young folk will even know what that is.
On topic... wasn't that where Don Mattrick went after leaving XB?
about 18 million for Mafia wars 1 on FB, isn't that enough?
Also the new games they create arn't interesting which is why they lack in comparison to the older games they have.
I say this all the time. And often get called a moron for it.
The casual market is very fickle. And in such makes it hard to grow. I shall explain this real fast.
When a company like Zynga comes out they get a ton of money and everyone thinks that "That is going to be a huge business" then, a few years later they realize something major... Anyone who might play their game... already is, and slowly that market will fall into the next fad leaving said company behind to die.
Zynga has had a great run. But the market will move on now to things like IOS and Android games that can be played anywhere. Casual gamers have less... I guess loyalty to a company, in the core market people know who is making their games, the casuals just know the name of the game.
I ran a text about this once. "Who made angry birds?" was the question. And no one knew it. Though if you ask a core gamer "Who made Metal Gear Solid" you will likely not get "Konami" as the reply, but instead "Hideo Kojima"