Social games are oft criticised for being little more than drivel. It’s a fair charge. After all, there’s not much intellectual value in games like Sorority Life and Mob Wars.
Nonetheless, they have become among the most popular activities for users of social networks. Zynga, the largest maker of social games, says it has 50m daily active users of its various games, most of those on Facebook. In turn, Zynga is raking in cash through the sale of virtual goods.
Now Zynga is trying to do a bit of good in the world. At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco yesterday, Zynga chief executive Mark Pincus said the company was now raising money for charities through “social virtual goods”.
Through two pilot programmes, Zynga has partnered with charities to sponsor virtual goods, then split the revenue. In the past two weeks on YoVille, users bought $220,000 worth of SPCA branded dogs and cats to inhabit their virtual worlds. Zynga in turn gave more than $100k to the San Francisco SPCA.
On FarmVille, users bought $830,000 worth of Sweet Seeds for Haiti branded seeds to grow in their virtual farms. Zynga is giving more than $400k to two charities in Haiti, Fatem and Fonkoze, and Mr Pincus said the donations would feed 500 Haitian school children for a year.
These are noble efforts by Zynga. In Silicon Valley — not known for being the most charitable business community — they could set a welcome precedent.
But Mr Pincus might have had another motive when he took the stage. Speculation about Zynga’s revenues has been rampant, with estimates for this year ranging from $100m to $300m.
In saying that just two types of virtual goods grossed more than $1m in two weeks, Mr Pincus seemed to be flexing Zynga’s muscles a bit. With 14 games across 7 platforms, including 5 of the 10 most popular games on Facebook, Mr Pincus seemed to be suggesting that Zynga’s total take was much, much larger.
