In one of the most profound keynotes I have ever heard, Brian Reynolds – the Chief Game Designer of Zynga Games (Company that produces Farmville, Cityville etc) revealed many insights into why Zynga is such a super success and how they have succeded in creating this massive entertainment Company using social media
First the basics:
Brian touched about humans in general and how we are wired up for being ‘social’. Having said that, his KEY INSIGHT was that ‘after a couple of sentences, we really dont know what to talk about to people we know but havent been close to, or met in years – such as Aunts, Uncles, relatives etc.
Games across Facebook immediately lubricated conversation and hence became a GREAT WAY to stay in touch and also keep relationships active!
Themes
The themes that work are UNIVERSAL – so City Life (cityville), farming (farmville) are the big hits. Anything more niche narrows the audience funnel and hence makes it less mass
Sexual Innuendos
Brian asked ‘what is the MOST SHAREABLE word on Facebook’?
It turns out that it is SEX
If there is a post that has the word SEX in it, its most likely to get shared between friends.
Brian then pointed out how Fronterville got MAJORLY LUCKY
The image below was generated when you were sheparding your sheep on Fronterville. However, the expression on the sheep and the girl generated lots of jokes on the Internet with the basic headline ‘WHAT IS SHE DOING TO THE SHEEP’???
WHAT IS SHE DOING!!
The image across all wall posts that were shared clicked into the Fronterville game.
Zynga used lots of Sexual Innuendos to make Fronterville more popular!
Avatars and what they say:
The other major insight shared by Zynga was how users were creating their Avatars. Married/committed folks were recreating their partners exactly; dating folks were matching their love but naming them differently. Folks not committed were creating their Fantasy person.
Another major insight was how many SAME SEX couples began co-habitating on Fronterville. The numbers of Same Sex marriages on Fronterville are more that the same sex marriages physically recorded in the USA.
It was like a ‘broke back mountain’ on steroids!
I think, given that Facebook is a 500+ million robust community, there is such a vast space of gaming ideas to be captured and leveraged that its a major business opportunity in itself!!
No small wonder that yesterday, in an SEC filing, its believed that Zynga is now worth close to 10 BILLION US$ – more that big boy Electronic Arts!!
Hmmmm… Farms, Cities, Sex, Animals, Same Sex Marriages….my mind is spinning!!