Some would call it karma
Zynga CEO Mark Pincus has just announced that 11 games will be either axed entirely, or stop accepting newcomers to cut costs. It seems as if assets will be funneled into their more popular ventures, and new ones as well. Yep, sounds like a business plan that makes sense.
A few of the marquee games included in the shutdown are Mafia Wars, Petville, and Vampire Wars. In fact, if it has “Ville” or “Wars” in the title, it’s probably gone. Sadly, the much beloved classic “Indiana Jones Adventure World” is also a casualty of war.
When logging into a few of these 11 games, players will be greeted with the following message: “howdy player, unfortunately the game you are looking for is not available anymore. Instead we have a whole new selection of free-to-play games. Try them out.” Of course, there’s no words of comfort that that one Dad who spent $5000 on his FishVille utopia.
With all of the trouble Zynga has caused in the industry, I’m sure more than a few people are happy at the news. Considering the low retention rate of social games, who knows how long they can keep up their success.
Game Over [Tech Crunch]
