Gaming Is a Darn Serious Business , Zygna secures $15 million in funding Source: Gaming Is a Darn Serious Business , Zygna secures $15 million in fun

Zynga-The game studio specializing in making games for social networking sites has recently secured a funding of $15 million in venture capital. The company has been on a roll ever since it introduced games for Facebook. What started with Mafia wars turned into a rage with its another sticky offering- Farmville. To gauge an idea of the popularity of the game, FarmVille application boasts of a mind boggling 65,387,640 monthly active users.
Mind you , this is not the first time that Zynga has secured a big ticket funding. They raised $29 million during 2008 and the total funding according to Crunchbase stands at $54 million. To me, that looks like loads of cash for a gaming company. Zynga seems to have stumbled upon a cash cow with its association with Facebook and enticing users to play it games.
What is interesting to note here is the revenue model which has taken a lot of flak during recent times and one of its new game Fishville was taken off for this very reason. The gaming apps lure the users to sign up for confusing offers and misleading advertisements in lieu of virtual cash and rewards.Even with all the skepticism surrounding the revenue model , Zynga is definitely doing good to attract a lot of venture capital.
To put things into perspective, Internet Gaming in general is a seemingly a brilliant business idea. Everyone likes to have a little fun and the best part about games of any sort is the sense of competition they create. This in itself leads to a word-of-mouth publicity and creates the Viral factor for the product. However, not all gaming portals click and from my experience playing Farmville (yes, I am a culprit too) , it is the stickiness and the recall factor that seems to be working for Zynga .The games are no brainer and extremely simple to play is another factor which help them go viral.
Here are some of the striking features that Zynga games have in common

• All have a Neighborhood concept making the user invite others to create a community kind of thing.There are obvious rewards on offer for having more neighbors and this leads to automatic promotion of the game and more and more users signing up
• All the games keep up the Recall factor with handy notifications.If you have played Farmville , you would have noticed every single activity that happens with your farm. Eg: If someone helps you the farm , if someone adds you as a neighbor etc.
• They keep the Stickiness factor by constantly coming up with the so called Mystery elements at regular intervals.The additions are very minor but they are big on the surprise and uniqueness factor.

These are some of the aspects I discovered during the time I spent playing Farmville. The question that got triggered in my mind is ,

Can non-gaming products take a lesson from these apps and work on the Stickiness and Recall Quotient

I have encountered innumerable start-ups that start with a bang and a lot of offering during their betas , but then stop offering new value additions.A few internet based forums/apps miss out on increasing the recall factor by not creating any notification mechanisms.

Games like Farmville and Mafia wars may not be high on the intellectual aspect but then they do offer a lot of fine learning points to analyze and absorb in other areas.

Do you think Gaming apps will continue to attract the user and the Venture Capitalists alike? Zynga sure seems to be doing it just right

Fishville Tips – When To Get More Fish To Grow

Have you read my first post about Fishville Tips and Tricks? You can visit the link here and have it read first before reading this post.
This time I would be sharing how I was able to level up fast and how I unlocked those extra tank and what level you are going to get more fish to grow.
At first you are just entitled to one tank and 15 fish to grow. When you reach level 4, you will get 30 fish to grow. At Level 10, you will unlock the second tank and with your first tank, you can raise 50 fish already while in your second tank, you will get additional 15 fish to grow.
Now, when you reach level 13, your second tank will be upgraded and can hold now 30 fish. And when you reach level 19, your second tank will be upgraded again and can hold 50 fish already. So, you will be able to raise 100 fish all in all.
Here’s the thing since I can grow 100 fish already, what I am doing is that, on my first tank, I am raising those fish that has a shorter time to grow, like the fast fish, while on my second tank, I choose those fish that has a longer time to grow like the Blue Damsel and Scooter Blenny and sell them when they reach age 4. I am using this strategy simply to level up fast and earn more money. Daily I have 50 fish to sell while waiting for my other 50 fish to mature. I will be getting more than double experience points and coins when those fish matures and ready to sell. As I have said on my previous posts, the longer waiting time for the fish to mature the higher the value and experience points you get. I will be posting the corresponding experience points per fish based on their age level on my next post.
It helps me to level up fast by doing this strategy. Now, I was able to unlock the 3rd tank and I have additional 15 fish to grow. You can unlock the 3rd tank when you reach level 20. However, if you have the Sand Dollar, you can already purchase the 3rd tank even if you are not yet on level 20.
Did I use Fishville Cheats here to reach this far? No, I did not. I don’t have Fishville Cheats to share yet, however, if I found one, I will be sharing it here so stay tuned.
Happy Fishing!!!

Fishville Tips and Tricks A Strategy Guide To All Fishville Fanatics

After few days of being suspended, Fishville game of Zynga is now up and running in Facebook. I am now enjoying the game and currently on level 13. That was fast right? So, how did I do it? Let me share some Fishville Tips and Tricks that you may follow.
Like any other aquarium games, in Fishville what you will need to do is to run your own aquarium, raise some fish, decorate your tank, clean your tank and sell your fish. The goal of this game is to keep your fish alive for you to sell it and earn some money that you may use to buy some fish and decorations and also to level up and be the top player among your friends.
When you start Fishville, you will initially get a tank that can hold 15 fish only, so with this, you need to plan right what fish to grow for you tolevel up fast and for you to earn more money and experience points.
Here are some Fishville Tips and Tricks to get you started.
How Do We Get Coins Fast In Fishville and Experience Points Fast?
Buying Fish Eggs – Initially, this is the first thing you need for you to be able to grow and sell a fish. On buying fish eggs, you will getexperience points.
Raising and Selling Fast Fish – If you are just starting, you must grow and sell fish that matures fast. These are the Mini Dart Goby, Red Spot Cardinal and the Sardine fish. You can grow them for about 5 minutes, 15 minutes and 3 minutes. You can earn coins fast and get experience points fast than raising a fish that would take you a day before you can sell them.
With Fishville, the fish have an age. As it matures the value of the fish also increases so with the experience points that you will get. Like for example with the Mini Dart Goby that grows in 5 minutes. During Age 1 you can sell them for 18 coins and you will get 6experience points . However, if you let them grow and reach age 4 that would take you another 15 minutes to reach that age, you can sell them for 72 coins and 24experience points per fish.
Showing Your Fish Some Love – It’s like a bonus coins everyday. This will show up at the bottom left corner of the tank. If you click the heart icon that would give you some extra coins. So, show your fish some love everyday. =)
Decorate your tank – This may cost you money but would give you experience points in return.
Help your Neighbors – You can get extra experience points and coins by extending your help to your neighbors.
Selling Gifts – You may sell those gifts that you receive if you think that you will not be needing them in your tank. Instead of keeping them inside your gift box, why not sell them for some extra coins.
How To Level Up Fast in Fishville?
Experience points are the key to level up. However, leveling up fast depends on the experience points you get each tasks. You need to plan the type of fish to raise if you want to get higher experience points. So if you follow the steps above then probably you will level up fast. =)
How Many Fish I Can Grow?
When starting you are only allowed to grow 15 fish. When you reach level 4, as a reward your tank expands and would allow you to grow 30 fish. This time you can raise half fast growing fish and the rest for those fish that would take some time to mature.
Of course, the longer the time to mature the higher the coins and experience points you get. But, gaining experience points and coins will not stop there because while waiting for those fish to mature, you still have those fast growing fish to sell.
In Level 10 you can grow 50 fish and you will also unlock the second aquarium that would give you extra space to grow additional 15 fish. So, if you are on this level, you can grow different kinds of fish.
How To Get Those Dollar Coins?
Everytime you level up you will get a corresponding amount of dollars. Instead of waiting for you to unlock the additional tank by reaching the corresponding level that it requires, you may use this dollar coins in purchasing additional tanks.
Hope this simple Fishville Tips and Tricks of mine will help you in running your own aquarium. On my next post, I will share to you some Fishville Cheats, so stay tuned!!

Fishville Of Zynga Suspended Due To Ad Violation?

Yesterday, I have just created my account with Fishville and was able to reach level 5. I left the house for a couple of hours to attend our worship service and when I returned from church and went online to check Fishville, I can no longer access the page.
It is so sad that Fishville cannot be played for the meantime. If you are trying to reach their page what you will get is this message “The application “FishVille” is temporarily unavailable due to an issue with its third-party developer. We are investigating the situation and apologize for any inconvenience.”
According to TechCrunch (also a blogger), Fishville has been temporarily taken offline by Facebook for advertising violations. It will remain suspended “until Facebook is satisfied that Zynga demonstrates compliance with Facebook’s TOS on the ads it offers to its users.”
It was known that two days ago was the launching of the game Fishville and for that two days it has already accumulated thousands of users and just yesterday based on Zynga’s stats it had reached 875,000 users and after two days the game cannot be played anymore due to ads violation.
This ad violation was reported to be scams and most of the victims are children and some gullible players especially those with cellphones. Like any other games in Facebook, you earn virtual money for you to buy virtual goods like tables, seeds, decorations and also with this virtual money you can expand your farm, cafe, or tank. You can do this by simply investing real cash through PayPal or Credit Card in exchange of this virtual money.
The scam took place when you do not have the real money to invest, that is when you accept an offer from one advertiser on the game site and get virtual cash in return.
These offers will ask you to sign up for something like a service that would require for your credit card or ask you to download something from a particular site. There are some offers that would ask you to complete a survey. However, some of these offers are deceiving. They don’t state on the offer page that the user is required to enter to a service with monthly subscription. You would never know that you are signing for something that would cost you at the end. And since most of the victims are kids, the parents unknowingly get those unwanted billings from an unwanted service.
Hope this issue will be resolve soon so there will be no victims of this kind of scams in the Internet.

Fishville A New Zynga Game Launches On Facebook

Zynga launches a new game application on Facebook called Fishville, an aquarium game like Fishworld. It seems that Zynga Inc., is modifying some existing games on Facebook like Fishworld, Happy Aquarium and My Fishbowl. This is not the first time Zynga modifies a game application on Facebook and the result based on stats a lot of Facebook game players like it better than the original one. Would Fishville defeat other aquarium games like Farmville does to Farmtown?


So what makes Fishville different to other aquarium games? The game is just simple like any other aquarium game, with Fishville, you need to assemble your first tank to get started, buy fish, feed them and sell them when it matures. You can also decorate your tank and purchase another tank if you think you need more fish to grow. However, you need to level up and add more neighbors if you want to purchase another tank.

I will be posting some Fishville Tips and Tricks so stay tuned!!!

Happy Fishing!!!