Competing with Zynga: My Recepie

Apr 19

Well read this and then this today… Good food for thoughts. And here I decided share my two cents.

Why it is hard to compete with Zynga?

Well firstly we do know that Zynga can skyrocket new games to the top of niche quickly. Then they are strong in number and they are expending not only in numbers but culturally too. So they have money, work force, people with different cultural views and large user base that allows them to make new products popular fast.

Those two articles above suggested 2 ways of competing with Zynga. One by making a game that would be very hard to clone. Well on the surface it seems that Zynga can clone anything fast enough right now to get to the top before competitors no metter how late they start. Or does it? I actually thing that innovation can throw things of balance in even most stable markets.

And in other article it was suggested to pick some small niches where Zynga will not want to go. But that’s not really a competition. It’s rather and evasion of competition and does make sense. Especially for independent developers. So not a competing but a good way to work.

But reading it and thinking about it I come up with the way I would have tried it.

My recipe for competing with Zynga

And it consists of two parts.

First part of course is innovation and probably on the back-end. Making a game that is good but that requires some innovative algorithms running on the back-end(stuff I like) which makes it clear, easy and enjoyable for players (easy to understand what it does) but hard to clone for competitors (hard to understand how it does it).

Another part of the recipe is to make a game in a niche that Zynga already occupies but with major (complete) changes making it a completely different game. Kind of a fresh air breeze in the same niche. It should be so different that changing game Zynga already has would hurt Zynga more then not doing it. I mean players never like drastic changes to product they already like. But at the same time (not shore actually about this part but it is important) I think that it would not make much sense for Zynga to make a new product in same niche to compete with your product because they will compete with their own product at the same time.

So combine those two things and you get a product which will make hard time for Zynga to decide on what to do with it. Hard to clone, and confusing to compete with as both strategies I see for it will also undermine their own product. And that means that you will at least have more time on getting attention before Zynga manages to do something (probably just taking what they can from your idea in to their original product, but only things that enhance and not change it).

Well that’s my two cents. Of course it is probably close to impossible to do all that at once and get an interesting game too But that’s how true innovation happens.

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http://fbindie.posterous.com/ Facebook Indie Games

Some interesting points here.

I like your idea of producing something that copies Zynga, in a way that they can’t easily counter copy (because it will alienate existing users). You could imagine for example a Treasure Isle-style game with some pirate themed violence thrown in. That’d have an appeal that Treasure Isle doesn’t have, and that Zynga would struggle to copy.

Of course, I disagree that what I suggested isn’t competition. Take Zombie Farm, for example. That’s a copy of Farmville that gives the players farm a zombie theme. Even though it’s going for a much smaller niche than Farmville, I’d still see it as a direct competitor — aiming to steal a sub set of Farmville’s players or potential players.
http://fbindie.posterous.com/ Facebook Indie Games

Some interesting points here.

I like your idea of producing something that copies Zynga, in a way that they can’t easily counter copy (because it will alienate existing users). You could imagine for example a Treasure Isle-style game with some pirate themed violence thrown in. That’d have an appeal that Treasure Isle doesn’t have, and that Zynga would struggle to copy.

Of course, I disagree that what I suggested isn’t competition. Take Zombie Farm, for example. That’s a copy of Farmville that gives the players farm a zombie theme. Even though it’s going for a much smaller niche than Farmville, I’d still see it as a direct competitor — aiming to steal a sub set of Farmville’s players or potential players.
admin

Heh I actually think Zombie Farm kind of falls in to both of our recipes It both is a smaller niche + it is in same category and is not a good idea for Zynga to clone but still an interesting idea
admin

Heh I actually think Zombie Farm kind of falls in to both of our recipes It both is a smaller niche + it is in same category and is not a good idea for Zynga to clone but still an interesting idea

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Competing with Zynga: My Recepie

Why it is hard to compete with Zynga?

My recipe for competing with Zynga

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