Draw Something loses 5M users after Zynga purchase

[headsh0t]

Draw Something Loses 5M Users a Month After Zynga Purchase - Forbes

We may be seeing the beginnings of a lesson as to why it’s not always the best idea to buy your competition outright. Mobile giant Zynga’s game development philosophy has always been, “If you can’ beat ‘em, buy ‘em,” followed by the less welcome “If you can’t buy ‘em, clone ‘em.”

In short, for nearly every game that hits number one on the mobile charts, Zynga will try to buy that company, and if they can’t, they’ll just make an eerily similar version of the game themselves. Most recently, Draw Something developer OMGPOP agreed to a Zynga takeover for the cool sum of $200M. Draw Something was exploding in popularity, and the purchase seemed like a good bet.

But now the move might seem equivalent to a company buying huge amounts of stock in Pogs or Members Only jackets without realizing that some things that are popular are merely fads. When you buy a company based on one specific success rather than a string of proven titles, you’re setting yourself up for potential disaster.

[Jebusman]

Originally Posted by headsh0t

tldr: Zynga is retarded

You'd think of all people they would understand the casual fad more than everyone else, and NOT throw money around all willynilly.

But then it wouldn't be the great casual bubble would it?

I can't wait for another crash.

[supaflyx3]

I really hope this kills off zynga, maybe then ill stop getting game requests for shit i dont care about.

[geokilla]

Well if they added more words for you to draw, and didn't make it so stupid with the login process, they wouldn't lose so many users.

[ADay2Long]

Personally I uninstalled the game after I saw the comments OMGPOP's CEO made about the employees that left after they were purchased by Zynga.

[clshades]

take the money and run!

[grinder]

Originally Posted by clshades

take the money and run!

NO DOUBT!!!! Good deal for OMGPOP, they sold at their peek.

[headsh0t]

Originally Posted by ADay2Long

Personally I uninstalled the game after I saw the comments OMGPOP's CEO made about the employees that left after they were purchased by Zynga.

Yes very poor taste indeed. He received a lot of flak for it, like with replies from Notch and even the CEO of Twitter. I don't blame the employee for not wanting to work for a game company that actually DETERS creativity and originality.

Very true to the article I eventually gave up playing, just do to the work involved in playing it. I bought the app for 99c so you get to choose from more words to draw, but most people had the free version so I was still guessing the same words over and over. Not to mention the terrible drawings of stick figures and super simple drawings lol :P Just got to be too much.

But boy did they ever sell at the right time eh!