It has nothing to do with being an operator in the poker world and everything to do with being an operator in the stupid little nothing game on your phone world.

They want (excuse the cliche) "candy crush" and the like addicts; not people who like to play poker.



I don't get it, but apparently people spend tons of money on fake stuff or on leveling up on some game on their phone that has no end because the operator keeps adding on, and if there was an end, then no more money obviously because people would get to the end, so that is why they keep adding to prevent an end. The game never ends. You can't win the game. There is no such thing. There is just continuing to play the mundane game and continuing to level up to get more items and paying money to level up or get items faster. The point of the game is to pay money.

Zynga absolutely would not classify themselves as "in the world of gambling." Nor do the regulators.

Std

this is just very very disturbing

Oh good grief, of course it isn't. It's completely unsurprising and undeserving of any ruffled petticoats.

You were expecting them to advertise for someone to make boring and forgettable games maybe?

People on this forum need to grow a thicker skin.

guess i should have added another "very" in there to get across the sarcasm, my apologies

Doh!

That was fascinating. I'm not a gamer, so it was eye-opening indeed to find out how CS:GO players can gamble with the "skins" they win/buy on Steam. The lack of regulation (whether it's Zynga or CS:GO) must be quite annoying to legit poker operators that have to pay huge amounts to regulators/govts. (I heard somewhere that Zynga Poker makes more money from selling play chips than 888poker makes from rake, due to the licenses and taxes 888 has to pay).

mobile gaming or pay to win mobile gaming posing as free to play is the cancer of gaming.

i mean its literally cancer. im 100% sure you get stage 3 bone marrow cancer if you "play" or design them.

Since this article, there's been a big crackdown on skin gambling. It is pretty clearly gambling in the eyes of most regulators at the point when skins can be converted back into cash, and any sites that facilitate these transactions are operating illegally without a license. Valve/Steam have cracked down on many on of the skin gambling sites and a lot have gone offline.

On the flip side, regulators have been pretty clear that social poker, where you can buy add-ons like more play money chips (importantly - you can't convert them back) is not gambling and does not require a license.

The UKGC for example has published position papers on both these issues recently.

Yup. Zynga did $104 million in gaming revenue from poker in 2016. 888 did $84.4 million.

That's straight GGR - it doesn't account for cost of licenses etc.

Zynga might, certainly Social Gaming (soft for Gambling) but in the end, what's legal is legal, as you are on point w/the how the regulators think about it.

Every game designer in the world sets about to make an addictive game. Every product designer in world sets about to make an addictive product. Nothing new.

Some incredible gems in this article, here are a few:

"So he sold his iPad on eBay for $200 and added some money he made working at his grandmother's Hebrew school. He billed the remaining cost of the skins to his father's credit card."

"When Grady Ballard saw the charges on his credit card begin to rise, he asked Elijah what he was spending the money on.....Once he calmed down, he told his son that he was taking $800 out of his bar mitzvah savings to pay his debts."

"Along the way, Elijah became adept at manipulating his parents. "He'd come into my office, which is right across from his room, crawl up into the fetal position and say, 'Mom, I did it again,'" Brenda recalls. "That triggered a pity reaction. But then, if I didn't immediately give him my credit card or bail him out, he'd get filled with so much anger that I worried he was going to break something."

Sounds like the kid just really, really likes games that are good for the developer's ecosystem...

Welcome to the new age: Brain Hacking - 60 Minutes

If Google stood next to Zynga they'd look less evil.

Zynga closed fun games played by millions to fund and concentrate their Casino games when they became so huge on FB. They are worse than Isis imo.

Jesus that ad is brilliant actually

Y'all are reading into this backwards

Zynga isn't in it to make people lose their houses to real money gambling

They're in it to make people lose their car to a free to play game

F2P/mobile gaming industry is so much more insidious than the gambling industry, it just operates one order of magnitude smaller. Like casinos they take advantage of every psychological trick in the book, unlike casinos they don't start at age 21.

There is a difference between addictive and fun.

A huge trend was/still is "incremental" games (also known as idle/clicker games). These are objectively terrible and unfun, but players are addicted to the constant reward of logarithmic leaps in progress.

Many top grossing mobile games are designed to be exceptionally dull unless you pay money to speed up progression.

let's see if he's even around in 5 years