Quote of the Moment: Zynga Envy

"I think that Zynga is a fundamentally different type of company than we are. And I don't mean that in a bad way. But they are about marketing and selling and distributing. We are about making games. There are few notable great companies that got created in the last few years -- these kind of overnight sensations.

"There's always professional jealousy of 'Wow, how did they do that?' But we were never trying to burn bright, burn big. That's a Silicon Valley way of life. And its a venture capital-based way of life that creates a certain kind of company. They want their companies to fail fast or to succeed fast. That's the business model.

When you are in the Valley, you sort of get in the middle of all of that talk. Having lived down there for a while, you remember what that sort of frenzy is like. Everyone is chasing whatever the hottest, latest thing is. And people just fry themselves on it overnight, and if they don't succeed they move on to the next hottest thing. So, the bright, shiny object problem is not something that we've been in the midst of -- partly because of our geography -- but also just because of the way we are. We are more about, let's build a good business....
"I think you create a different kind of value, and it is a little slower to get there. But we are pretty happy. We have never had to compromise anything about what we believe in for great products. And Zynga actually is blazing some great trails for us. With hundreds of millions of people -- who now because of FarmVille -- say 'Hey, I can play games again.' ...

"So, yeah, there's always a little bit of jealousy that a company can be worth billions of dollars in two years. But, it ain't over til it's over. And I think we are going to continue to build some awesome value here, and people love the games. And we are going to keep making great games."

-Popcap CEO Dave Roberts talks to TechFlash about why he's not exactly jealous of Zynga's success in social gaming

Top 25 Facebook Games - January 2011

Inside Social Games has released the top 25 Facebook games for January and -- to no surprise -- Zynga's new darling CityVille has gone straight to the top of the charts, overtaking FarmVille, which until recently, seemed darn near impossible. The real question is how long CityVille will stay at the top or if this number is inflated due to extra promotion and the 'new'ness of it all.

Other newcomers to January's Top 25 list include PopCap's Zuma Blitz, which is a timed version of the classic PC game,and CrowdStar's uber girly game, It Girl, which grew 1.2 million last month.

top 25 facebook games 2011

A few other things to point out in this list:

- CityVille gained 80 million users in one month. Wow. It's surprising to see how a city-building game, which isn't drastically different from the many other city-building games out there, gained that much traction. It's a true testament to the power of Zynga's cross-promotion (and it also might be a sign that Zynga's learning how to make more compelling games).;

- FarmVille has been losing players for monthy (roughly 30 million so far), but in December, managed to gain 4 million players One would assume that's due to a combination of all of the special events in the game for the holiday season, the return of game notifications on Facebook and a cross-promotional synergy among all of Zynga's games, many of which were also up last month (with exception of Mafia Wars).