Mark Pincus – The Comedian

I was reading through my E-Mails when I came across something interesting. It was an E-Mail update from seekingalpha.com. Within the contents of the E-Mail I read “CEO Mark Pincus at the D10 conference isn't enough to keep his company from making new lows.”

I just had to find out more so I followed some links and came across an article on allthingsd.com that was written by Tricia Duryee and it was titled;

Zynga’s Mark Pincus Talks About His Management Style, Acquisitions and Mobile

Basically the article is an interview with Mark Pincus being interviewed by someone named Kara.

At first it seemed like your A-typical boring interview with planned responses from pre-scheduled questions. Then I came across some responses of Mark Pincus that just made me bust a nut. Here’s what cracked a rip in my britches;

Kara: The “potential”? I assume that most of your business will shift to mobile.

Mark: Let’s not forget the opportunity on PCs. A lot of the traffic happens when people are at work, on boring conference calls.

The three drivers of our business and market: Games becoming more free, accessible and social.

Just building audience brings revenue, though.

 

Final question: How do you lessen your attachment with Facebook?

Mark: There’s nothing stopping us from putting our games in other places. I have a 90-10 rule. When a platform can get you millions of daily active users, then that’s when you invest. Facebook has done that for some time, and now iOS and Android are just getting to that point. I think people have a latent interest in playing, and we will go anywhere where we can make it free, accessible and social.

Since nearly every feature in Mafia Wars requires some sort of demand or requirement for the purchase of RP’s, I don’t see it.

Ok, yes it is true that I can log into the game for free without having to buy a membership. Yes, I can click a few buttons that give an illusion that I am accomplishing something. Yes, I can participate in all the in-game events and tasks.

What I can’t do is keep up. I spend priceless amounts of my time trying to play this game while trying to get the tasks completed before a countdown clock reaches 0. I do not get to complete every mission in a timely manner. Since the Limited Time Properties have been modified to have 15 levels I haven’t completed a single property to its maximum level. My mission bar still has 2 active missions that are seemingly just sitting there. In fact, the Extreme Mission had to be changed since Zynga closed Italy. I can’t compete with those who do spend money – the ‘VIP’ members. I just ain’t important to Zynga!

And then what did you say about “building an audience bringing in revenue?” I can clearly see how that works in the above image. That is, chase everyone away from the game until only those who spend money for a slight advantage are left. Is that right? Co-bull-u-shit-gh Co-bull-u-shit-gh!

Now that Zynga (ZNGA) hit an all-time low with the cost per share of its stocks and is now worth $4.5 billion you might want to consider trying to find that audience that will bring you that revenue.

Thanks for the laugh Mr. Pincus.