Oh man, this just keeps getting better and better. Wherever you guys dug this up, or whoever submitted it – great work!

lol.. wiki toolbar and cudnt get rid of it..

my sister had the same fate with the tattoo toolbar .. it was fkin pain removin it ..

hay mike
how long until he gets let go…my take on this was this was a whole scam and he will keep his job and shirt…what a scammer….kpcb needs to pull the plug on this guy and keep clean of this business model.
james

Wow, I like this Michael. Hats off.

So did someone piss M. Arrington off?
Or is this whole campaign his bid for journalistic recognition?

There’s really no way to spin this kind of shamelessness, is there? Painful viewing.

This only highlights the issues that are created when potential investors demand large shares of companies if they are not generting revenue shortly after day one of operations.
You lie, cheat, steal, and do whatever it takes to generate revenues so that you can receive an investment deal that will allow you to “Control your own destiny” Never mind that you scamed users to do this.
I think that there is a need to create a kind of “Best Practices” pact that sites sign on to be a part of. By siging on you agree that you will not scam users. If you do scam than you are off the list of “Best Practice” sites and your scam tactics are documented and published to the site.
This can bring a very much needed level of tranparency to the process.

no, he’s not going anywhere. He clearly had no idea this would all blow up way down the road. But by taking a leadership position now he’ll absolutely be forgiven. Quickly.

its painful to watch and how no one noticed this before is odd. oh well, good work Mike.

Wow. The domino effect.

Facebook could be next. We already know MySpace has been missing revenue target like crazy, and this is before the current “Scamdal” (see, I just coined a new word) hit.

In some circle, these people are heralded as the “Golden Boys of Web 2.0″, their companies’ eye-popping growth got them financial magazines write-ups and TV interviews by pandering hosts.

Congrats, Mr. Arrington, great job. If Facebook survives this “scamdal”, the smiling golden boy owes a you huge debt.

Well, even if they are a bunch of SHADY F@#$s, farmville is so much fun :) now, excuse me while I go harvest my pumpkins and collect my turtle eggs.

This is getting so old and boring – is there another story out there…
Obviously Zynga is the undispted leader and everyone else – especially the losers at Slide,are jealous.

I dunno, but I can tell you now that for the first time I believe this guy can take a whole freagin’ industry down. Best advise is for everyone involved to come clean now and be humbled.

I just saw the whole video on vimeo, this guy is NOT a good public speaker… to scatter brained.

you always put things in perspective, Justine.

irrelevant.

hahaha thanks :P Lemme know if you ever wanna be my neighbor!

noted. in my defense I thought this story was done days ago. all this new stuff just keeps happening.

Well said William! Great idea on the “Best Practices” stamp of approval.

Mike, i don’t always know what to think of you…but this whole unraveling has been great. thanks.

what difference does that make? you don’t HAVE to be a good public speaker

Yes he isn’t going anywhere, as he says in the video:
“I control my company today…I created a B stock with 10X votes.”

Usually someone who was pushed out of the previous company they founded protects themself with 10X voting power in their next company. Smart cookie :)

[...] Update 11: Zynga CEO Mark Pincus: “I Did Every Horrible Thing In The Book Just To Get Revenues” [...]

[...] Update 11: Zynga CEO Mark Pincus: “I Did Every Horrible Thing In The Book Just To Get Revenues” [...]

Mike
I got the impression that everyone was jealous of Offerpal since they got their business model right over the likes of Slide and RockYou…How many times has Slide changed it’s business model…I get the impression that too many people got jealous at the likes of Super Rewards and OfferPal and went for their heads…I am watching his clip, and I find it very hard that the likes of a firm like KPCB would invest in Zynga without really looking at the true business model…after this incident starting last week from the conference why are the likes of the other CEO still in place. I do not think this story is done but just start to open up…in the clip mark mentions the 3ed Internet with virtual goods payments and you at techcruch should run with this segment and analysis…Keep the ball rolling. Good Job on your part.
James

i agree with this mike so keep up the analysis and run with this….your blog has the lead….go for the touchdown on 4 and 20 yards

Mike, keep digging! this is a deep deep shit hole and you are doing what we truly respect….Need similar (actually much worse…) stories from China? i can feed that…what a world

Well that’s just embarrassing :)

well, major media is finally starting to pick this up: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1935698,00.html

until now we’ve just had love letters:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_44/b4153044881892.htm

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/1116/revolutionaries-technology-social-gaming-farmville-facebook-zynga.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/dec/29/social-networking-games-playfish-facebook

Entertain a hypothetical here: if the former OfferPal CEO were to be very polite in the conference and said to Mike things like, “You’re right, Mr. Arrington, we’re aware of these scams, and we will clean them up.” There would be no sensational video, and possibly only a much subdued blog post by Mike, and Zynga and Facebook would continue business as usual.

But then all it takes is one pissed-off parent, one clever lawyer, one class-action lawsuit, or worse, one energetic district attorney, and the whole house of cards will fall, a la, Enron.

So it sounds like if the revenue tumbles sufficiently — that Pincus has no ethical problem running whatever offers are necessary to get back to the top — its all about controlling one’s destiny.

doesn’t matter..it worked…

Hopefully now you’ll stop publishing glowing reports about Zynga, Playfish and social media gaming.

I also don’t think Facebook will be profitable in the next quarter.

Arrington I appreciate you for bringing this up because companies doing the WRONG techniques were WINNING and companies going for the HIGH ROAD were LOSING. With proper regulation, any efficient industry in the long run will not last with this reward system.

I had a few meetings with Mark an Co. very early on when it was three of them and a dog named Zynga at their completely empty offices on Vermont Ave. It was obvious morals were extremely low on their list and thus I opted not to partner with them.

Mistake? Sure from a financial standpoint today I can say it was.

Would I walk away again? Yes.

Call me a purist but I do believe in the long run those that give their users clearly what they want without layers of scamming and devious methods… will win in the end.

which is why facebook must get its act together.

that too.

The fact that, as he said, he was profitable before funding due to the scams, he was able to retain control. It really helps when you’re making money :)

The irony in all this is that TechCrunch has essentially promoted Pincus in the past.

From allowing him to participate in a TechCrunch50 panel in 2008 to writing about his keynotes (see “Mark Pincus: Web 3 Is The App Economy” by MG Siegler, “Startup School: Mark Pincus Talks About Becoming A Great CEO, With Tony Robbins’ Help” by Jason Kincaid, etc.), it seems kind of bizarre that all of a sudden a model serial entrepreneur who TechCrunch treated as a legitimate player has been turned into a villain. I’m sure I’m not the only one who suspects there may be more to this story than meets the eye. It’s not as if these “scams” just appeared on the scene yesterday…..

it’s a good question.

There’s something to be said about the candor, nonetheless. That’s some serious “fucking” honesty.

anyone seeing the smiley at the bottom of the page ( Right below Contact and Crunchcam) ?

Voodooo

At last someone talking morality here!

Thanks

i think you’ll find he said the zwinky toolbar

yeah, you’re right. changing that.

and by the way, that absurdly evil little product is care of IAC.

Sounds like the right time for a new subject. What do you think of the Leapfish story, Michael?

Nice one Jon. I really hate the fact that people using scams to earn money are tagged successful and thanks to the persom or team who dug this out.

it’s Droid time, baby!

MA, next story: FB knew about this all along.

And that was why FB never bought the app companies, even though every1 knew they had a positive cash flow.

When I was making a facebook poker odds calculator app at the start of the year I was looking at advertising options for my app.
It was against fb’s terms to have poker affiliate advertising on the app, it was very clearly laid out, yet Zynga’s texas holdem app had poker affiliate advertising. How was this allowed? And how long had it been going on for? I mean it was one of the biggest apps out with something like 6million users at that time… I wanted an even playing field, so i used the report function to report a violation of terms but nothing happened.
So after 3 weeks I started a thread on the developer’s blog and eventually Zynga (either forced or voluntarily) pulled those affiliate ads from their app. However this was going on for goodness knows how long prior and im sure Zynga made a lot of affiliate commissions in that time and to this day of those players. Good thing here though is at least this wasn’t scammy like everything else thats being uncovered, only against fb’s t&c.

May I add another note to this “scam practices” discussion… albeit a irrelevant to Zynga’s practices per se… Did you know that back in the day (first year of FB open API platform), there were advertising networks which also had app development houses so that if an app (say, a quiz) was doing really well, they’d clone the same app in-house and launch the app so that they could also join in the pageviews race. This has largely been an issue not discussed before.

I’m not saying that having an inhouse development/production team isn’t ok but oftentimes they were cloning their own client’s apps (i.e. An app that wants to grow decides to get off the ground by advertising on these networks. The networks notice the great idea behind the app, and clones it).

All it takes is for one of the insiders to blow the whistle on this.

Ah, very true! We’re a bit in denial on this side of the Pond…(UK)

Good article and what a shame that Mark has all this to say to founders of young startups and students at Berkley. Immoral and totally incorrect!

Last week I had an epic struggle to remove Zwinky toolbar from the desktop. It wasn’t fun.

I did some research to find out the parent company which published this plugin and was surprised by the result

– http://www.iac.com/Our-Businesses/Vimeo

For me, this was disturbing to see this at many levels.

First, this speech happened at an educational institution. Students there are looking for advice that they can put to use. This is definitely not an advice they should take it to heart. I am sure everyone knows that. I do wish someone out there challenged it.

Second, to know that company was founded by a reputed VC firm who would have known about the way revenues were generated. So it is almost an endorsement that any kind of revenues is OK. Winning at any cost is what matters.

I can go on but so many others above have already have said some of the things I wanted to say.

Lastly, I have to say that this may prove that the following equation may not be valid all the time

|PR| = PR

I am sure Mark would not have wanted this kind of PR exposure.

Best,
Rajesh

Our man Mike wakes up one fine morning, questions the CEO of a scammy company, she in turn rips him apart verbally (not logically), our man Mike gets pissed off and starts digging stuff to prove they all are scammy and in the climax “twittergate” Mike becomes the ethical police of the Internetz.

I disagree, it just reinforces that they are the leaders , they can set standards that others will follow – and all the others are irrelevant cause they are not important enough to take pot shots at.

Mike,

I suspect that the “Risk” section of any IPO document for ZYNGA (& other SocGaming co’s); OfferPal (& other SocPayments/Offers co’s) and Facebook (& other SocNet co’s) will read like the IPO docs of online gambling co’s that have gone public since 2004 (i.e. 5-20 pages long & investor beware!).

Aside: What amazes me is that the US authorities allow this type of doggy business practice to continue, unregulated without intervention, and do not permit online poker within a highly regulated environment.

Additionally, as a lawyer, do you agree with my view that there are potential class action issues that will be lurking over these companies going forward?

Seems like your epic efforts over the past week may have pushed back any IPO plans these co’s may have had – bad for them, but broadly benefits “social” users (all of us).

Overall, good job. I think you will be remembered for this one. Good on you. Keep it up.

http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/ask-toolbars/

If I were king, all perpetrators would be drawn and quartered on national television :)

Good think the US was built on such practices. All hail the robber barons!

So what? Just let Zynga as a whole go. And put your attention on people who are actually focusing on creating great gaming experiences instead of get-rich-quick schemes passed off as games.

At least IAC says you are getting a toolbar on the page, you can uninstall from add/remove programs and are upfront about it- I installed a tattoo from mywebtattoo.com and couldn’t read the text, didn’t know it was a toolbar and they wouldn’t let me uninstall- that was shady as all can be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese_profanity#Turtles_and_eggs

if these scams are illegal, then would that mean what this guy does is also illegal since he’s simply getting people to fall for them and taking a cut of the profits? (it’s a CPA model so he only gets his cut when the person has been successfully scammed)

Would consumers who have been taken in by one of his scams and lost money in the past be able to sue Zynga? (sounds like they have a large pot of cash so perhaps it’s worth someone giving it a go!)

These are the kind of ‘entrepreneurs’ who should not be allowed to continue in business. They will do anything to make money, no matter what impact it has on people. The guy is bragging about forcing toolbars on people that can’t be removed.

HEY LOL! MAYB WE CAN HAZ MONEY LOL! ANY1 TRY 2 SUE THEM PLZ? LOL

Sorry, it sounds a bit pathetic.

Why is it up to facebook? Why are we always looking to other people to parent us in terms of morals? Your article basically tells a success story.. sorry I scams you out of millions… we will be good now.. do you know how angry it makes people to download toolbars from hell.. do you know how annoying it is to click on an ad and be taken o a shitty site..

Thi doesn’t just hurt Zynga it hurts the web… cause each person who gets scammed is less likely to purchase stuff online… the CEO is a joke cause what consequences will he face.. a fancy ne yacht… a porches…

Heh.

All this debate is around the scams, but isn’t Zynga also ripping off other people’s games? Farmville is identical to Farmtown which I think came first. So similar that it is remarkable. Doesn’t even attempt to look any different.

Never seen anything quite at brazen, unless there’s some part of this I’m missing.

I guess there’s perhaps some legal loophole which Zynga/Offerpal etc are using by only taking a cut of the profits but not directly defrauding people themselves.

But I certainly don’t think it’s as dumb a suggestion as you think… this isn’t small-time fraud; it’s on an absolutely massive scale – and people are genuinely being conned out of a lot of money.

I am tired of the shallow apologies that leaders give when they’re caught.

If Mark Pincus was truly sorry for scamming users, he would return all revenues generated from scammy offers. Think that is going to happen?

Some moral systems have the concept of penance: giving back to those who have been hurt to demonstrate genuine regret. Until leaders give penance, apologies are just empty words, and the same beat will go on…

I think it’s ok to change your mind about something… it’s shows a certain amount of openmindedness. However, it IS also possible that there might have been some undercurrent that resulted in this sudden “expose”.

In particular, the first piece was about Offerpal, yet the custom logo for the article was a play off “Farm Ville”, which obviously manipulates us, the readers, to think immediately to Zynga’s products. (And it was not too soon before we did).

to think that zynga is expected to go IPO is unthinkable. these people are the worst spammers and all their apps are copycats. no value here, just revenue

it’s also good to point out the good things in this small industry. playfish is i think the primary example of a game company that focuses solely on quality and good user experience.

facebook is also to blame here. facebook purposely made it extremely easy to spam users to lure more developers, and that’s where things started to go bad. First was all the gifting apps which forced you to invite 30 friends before using them, then abusive apps etc. it took years for some quality apps to spring up.

facebook is currently planning to kill their platform virality, presumably to focus on Connect, so these social games are going to be hit hard.

same goes for slide inc. and rockyou ads, although they were pure spammers, not scammers

good lord how does some who looks like a ned/chav hanging round the sainsburys carpark in his hot hatch with the tacky body kits ever get veunding from a reputable VC

multiple types of stock like that is still a sign of doddgy geezer

Geoff if your a CEO part of your job is representing the company and i fyou arn’t happy doing that well maybe your in the wrong Job

The timing is perfect for TC. Not so perfect for Pincus. But since he controls the board, he wont suffer like Anu.

Where is Industry Standard when we need them?

Ugh, it’s not like Zynga’s games are even any fun! They just clutter up my FB stream with cows and job requests and all kinds of rubbish. Can’t say I look up to this guy, unlike other internet CEOs – Michael Hansen of DubLi’s an example of how a web CEO should conduct himself, imho.

Keep going at Pincus/Zynga. All these scam Ad companies think that saying sorry and changing after being caught and exposed is enough. Pleading guilty after there is enough evidence to convict is hollow in my opinion, and really empathises there lack of morals. After all, if they had any they would have changed without the need of naming and shaming

It’s Facebooks kingdom, they have to set and enforce a standard that benefits customers, retailers and developers.

So the moral of the story is:

Do whatever you can to get rich, screw your users, create “super” stock to control your investors, push out competitors or buy them with “offers they can’t refuse” and in the end, it’s going to be “OK” because you’ve turned over a new leaf.

The morals in this world are pretty screwed up.

Would love to see VC Fred Wilson give his 5 cents.

My question to Fred is as follows.
Knowing what you know today would you still have invested in Zynga?
The video is shocking and knowing 30%+ of your revenues are coming from shady conversions.

Are there any estimates as to how much of their profit came from scams, advertising, or sale of virtual goods? Obviously any amount of intentional scamming is unacceptable, but I’m sure some entrepreneurs would like to know just how profitable it really is to be selling imaginary poker chips and wheelbarrows.

Awesome. And now he claims to be legit?

F him and Zynga. People like him can not be trusted to do the right thing, ever. Next time Zynga runs into revenue problems, he’ll be right back to the same unethical, semi-legal bulls***.

I’m uninstalling every single Zynga game from my iPhone tonight.

So, now that they’ve been exposed, what are their real revenues? Anyone know? Is Zynga doomed? btw, Mikey, great to have you back actively posting on TC again.

Thats how the get rich quick, make money online gurus have been doing it for years. On the old search engines, then on Google, now on Facebook, they are everywhere, you can’t throw a click online without hitting one.

I find it very ironic that TC constantly talks about the end of old media (an how they represent the future of media), and then shouts to the rooftops when the “major media” picks up a story that they started. This happens over and over.

You can’t have it both ways Mike.

Is there some saying about “behind every fortune is a crime” or some other unethical thing?

One could say that Google did and continues to promote a variety of scam offers through AdWords/Sense. They’ve tried to clean things up, or at least move the small players out with quality score, page 1 pricing, etc, but the real results show: http://www.google.com/search?q=acai+berry&pws=0

The second result when I searched was “www.CNN.com” What you want to bet that it really isn’t CNN but some scam site? These clicks cost about $3 or more a pop, so Google is still making big money off of rebills.

It is unfortunate that this was the path he took to get where he was, but wasn’t MySpace started by shady characters?

He is not without taint, but what he chose to do now is important. Especially now he has a compelling company and is a market leader.

http://www.traderbots.com

Pincus is a scam artist, and has been since the beginning. He’s a great salesman,and a good start up guy, but represents the very worst that silicon valley has to offer. It also shows how people in the Valley and who cover the Valley get sucked into the hype surrounding prized angels. Pincus has build a house of cards by scamming and arbitraging Facebook. Good Job Tech Crunch for exposing this pretender.

well all zynga’s apps are copies of popular apps… the “app economy” is just a scam system…

Also hi5 and tagged are using the same scams.

Why stop at with social gaming? Why not take this battle to major web sites, like CNBC.COM that seems to be only running IQ quiz like apps for their ads..

I applaud TechCrunch for bringing this all to light but have to ask why now? This story has been there for the telling for at least a year in the social gaming space. Nasty leadgen and continuity programs are all around us on and offline and have been for YEARS.

Now that Zynga is on top, exposing them will do very little. Witness the speed and ease with which they abandoned their former scummy tactics when caught. They’ve got the cash and the momentum now, it is easy for them to come to Jesus, take the high road, and become a born again ethical business.

The lesson here for entrepreneurs is just as Pincus says – do whatever it takes in the short term and ask forgiveness later. Even TechCrunch will forgive you if you “take a leadership position” when you’re caught.

this is disapointing but not surprising. anyone who has dealt with mark would not find this behavior shocking at all. what is even sadder is that this weak apology somehow now gives him a pass.

instead the media and facebook should be all over zynga to get it banned from facebook and set an example. i am not just talking about the govt which may now look at this and extract a weak settlement instead fb should ban zynga and its network permanently from advertising or operating on fb. now that would clean up this stuff pretty quickly and a death penalty like that would be well deserved. mike you should be the first one calling for a zynga ban permanently just like the same way you went after offerpal.

cleaning it up now is not enough of a deterrent to others who operate this way or frankly zynga – if this is what it takes to make money in the future and it is the only avenue i am pretty sure they would go down this road again foregoing an ipo and remaining a cash machine.

What an airhead.

Finland’s equivalent of Reuters, STT also ran a story* on Nov 3rd about virtual gaming, concentrating on Zynga & Farmville. It appeared in every major national media.

It included one chapter where shady sides of the business were discussed. I’m guessing that we have TC to thank for that.

*Story Google Translated:
http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=y&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.iltasanomat.fi%2Fviihde%2Fuutinen.asp%3Fid%3D1748546&sl=fi&tl=en&history_state0=

[...] This past week he penned a post that basically took down a few questionable people and practices.  Today we see this gem of a [...]

this is disappointing but not surprising. anyone who has dealt with mark would not find this behavior shocking at all. what is even sadder is that this weak apology somehow now gives him a pass.

instead the media should be all over facebook to have it ban zynga and set an example. i am not just talking about the govt which may now look at this and extract a weak settlement instead fb should ban zynga and its network permanently from advertising or operating on fb. now that would clean up this stuff pretty quickly and a death penalty like that would be well deserved. mike you should be the first one calling for a zynga ban permanently just like the same way you went after offerpal.

cleaning it up now is not enough of a deterrent to others who operate this way or frankly zynga – if this is what it takes to make money in the future and it is the only avenue i am pretty sure they would go down this road again foregoing an ipo and remaining a cash machine.

I’m pretty sure that selling one company and taking another public has a lot to do with it. What’s on your rezzy?

TechCrunch always talks about how great these companies are without properly looking into their business models.

I always knew about these social networks and how they generate their revenues was through fishy ad schemes, (ie: FaceBook ads) This issue stems from the widely overused advertising revenue model for supporting a web companies. Because the spammers are the only one benefiting from this ad-supported frenzy.

Facebook knows there are fishy ads on their websites, but they won’t admit it. Facebook is an over-hyped piece of shit, that’s why I don’t use their spam applications.

You sound like you’re from London… :)

behind every great fortune is a crime

[...] TechCrunch analysis of Zynga CEO’s presentation during a startup@berkeley mixer. [...]

Was this even an apology? I didn’t watch the entire video, but as far as I can tell the lesson I’ve learned is that I really need to start screwing people so that I can have more freedom. This seriously looked like a how-to video and not an apology.

Yes Farmtown did come first and Farmville is a complete and absolute rip off. Also Mafia Wars is an exact duplicate of Mob Wars (which they were sued for and had to settle), Cafe World is an exact rip off of Playfish’s Restaurant City, and all the games they built their company off of in the old days were brazen rip offs of classic games like risk and battleship.

[...] attempts to clear up this controversy by Zynga CEO Marc Pincus, clearly, the future success of social games [...]

That is a great point. As much as I love AVC/Fred Wilson, I also remember him getting rid of his Apple shares due to what he believed were unethical practices by Jobs & Co (quote: “if you lie down with dogs, you’ll come up with fleas). I wonder how he processes this one.

Side comment: Michael, great work across board on this story. We tend to default as an industry to fawning over the industry stars, and no ifs, ands or buts, Pincus is a GREAT entrepreneur, but the behavior reeks, certainly not something you would share with your kids, parents, grandparents. As such, it’s great to see TC REALLY shine a light on truly unethical behavior.

At some point, our culture needs to celebrate winning ethically, as opposed to the ends simply justifying the means. All one has to do is look at the crater in our Economy, Wall Street and Washington to know that what you sow is what you reap.

Cheers,

Mark
–
Getting Real: On Doomsday, the Demise of So-Called Experts and the New Arbitrage
(http://bit.ly/tjd3)

“By siging on you agree that you will not scam users” yep, that would be a start, get the CEO to say it in plain English.

There are already codes of conduct that ethical networks belong to – so he actually need to change the companies they use as advertisers – scammy networks will house scammy offers – it’s all about MONEY – they don’t give a toss if you are a happy,friendly social networker type person or a hillbilly teenager – they just want to rip you off then blame the customer for being GREEDY.

At the moment they are taking the blame, but their scam buddies are already thinking of ways to tweak the plan – end result – people are still gonna be ripped off.

Good to highlight it occasionally – but scamming is deeply ingrained in the Internet profit machine – Google make money from it – they all do – they are surviving the recession by taking money out of little kids wallets – they are the exact type that would steal food off a hungry baby in order to survive – that is real business – they are laughing their heads off at anyone that buys from them – like the 409 scammers.

Where the heck are all the ambulance chasers?

“…companies doing the WRONG techniques were WINNING and companies going for the HIGH ROAD were LOSING.”

“Call me a purist but I do believe in the long run those that give their users clearly what they want without layers of scamming and devious methods… will win in the end.”

Good comments and we all agree.

Question: Why is the Zwinky toolbar an “absurdly evil little” product?

I have been in the software industry a long time and as far as I can tell Zwinky is as compliant as they come. You can uninstall the toolbar in the menu button. If you do go to the Add/Remove page it is clearly visible and easy to uninstall. Both Mark and Michael are clearly mistaken.

I am concerned that Michael has an audience and is now able to attack as he wishes without doing any due diligence.

Michael… before you make claims that a product is an “absurdly evil little product” do some journalistic research.

PS- Hats off on the story. Much needed. That was my only concern.

And someone who operates like a used car salesman takes that attitude with him wherever he goes. Not only are their games shitty, shameless copies of other shitty games, their attitude to their users is that of preying on suckers, and their company is a sweatshop.

Lovely.

Good points, and that is one lesson for entrepreneurs. But entrepreneurs have got to ask themselves: “What do I really want?”. TONS of money? Or a little money and self-satisfaction? This is a serious question, not rhetorical. What do you want? Really want.

It sounds like to VC’s pushed him over the edge.

[...] developer on Facebook — and one that has come under increasing scrutiny recently for its use of scammy advertising offers in games — has just soft-launched a new title called [...]

Don’t fill out those incentivised offers…

Irregardless, I still like playing Mafia Wars…

There has been so much controversy swirling around Pincus. Every startup he has been involved with has been based on his greedy, self serving illicit activities. It is time the hammer comes down and it seems as though karma is starting to catch up with him. BOYCOTT PINCUS, BOYCOTT ZYNGA and put the company in the dumpster where it belongs

http://www.antispyware.com/glossary_details.php?ID=1409

“The Zwinky Toolbar is component of the Zwinky online site that allows users to build online profiles. This adware is bundled with several other AskJeeves applications that track browsing activities via cookies and perform updates without notifying the end user. ”

…and users can’t remove it without taking huge steps to do so.

This is a great story – and the results are positive, but as others have said, it’s far from new.

I’d argue that Zynga are not the biggest offenders. Nearly every major online publisher (FB, FOX, GOOG, YHOO, etc.) has generated millions of dollars in revenue off of shady mobile offers, diet scams (hello acai!), homebiz offers, and teeth whitening.

It’s a pervasive part of the online and offline advertising industry that has been around for years, and is just starting to get attention.

Not that Social Gaming shouldn’t be taken to task, but there are definitely bigger fish in the sea, and it’s not exclusive to a few scam artists out there unfortunately.

Pincus has been an unethical, shady, greedy, lawbreaker ever since he entered the startup world. This isn’t news it is simply fact based on his track record. Boycott Zynga, Boycott Pincus and put his company in the dumpster where it belongs.

Mike Arrington has created quite a storm, hasn’t he?

Michael, this is great stuff. I do appreciate that this is brought into light.

I’m a developer myself, but we did recognize the scams in the business and did in fact not want to launch on the offerplatforms out there. In retospect, yes we did loose out on tremendous revenue, but if I rather live with myself. As a business person, to stand in front of an audience – or even a mirror – and state what Pincus did – that is not a way of doing business.

Nope, rather be poor than a scamster that utilize the weak.

Great journalism Mike. The people say the story is old – nope, it’s just breaking and this is the tip of the iceberg. That said, I saw this in 2007 but I guess the revenue ciricle and the hoopla is catching up now to bring this to light.

this scumbag company needs to be taken off every damn platform there is. Whichever company still allows them to have their product needs to goto hell

What’s really screwed up is the users allowing companies like this to screw them over and over again.

Kick the dog (users) anytime you feel like it. It will love you again in the morning.

And it will continue to go on…

JP Morgan 2.0

[...] Historical footage of Mark Pincus discussing Zynga’s initial growth strategy. Many strong companies (like MySpace) have a questionable past. But this does nothing to help [...]

WAIT.

Whats with the investors? Any comments, statements from Investors here Michael?

They do their ‘due diligence’ when it is all about future revenue expectations. But by ‘consumer protection’ they missed by a big margin.

It reminds me about Plaxo, when everyone got an email to join bc they accessed my contacts list. The only one who really wrote about that ‘shady customer acquisition scheme’ was Michael Arrington. And as Investor I would have been ashamed to have backed up a company who does everything pushing the stats.

Its a very small part of the CEO job. Bill Gates was a terrible speaker (he’s gotten somewhat better over the decades).

Yeah and it says the danger level is nothing- have you tried to uninstall it? yeah it’s annoying but I knew what I was getting when I wanted those stoopid cards all I had to do was click uninstall. Seems pretty simple to me…

Because businesses (and people in general) are not driven by a code of ethics, they are driven by money. In any ecosystem where there is one bad actor scamming and profiting from it, the other actors have to do the same or end up dead.

The only thing that can prevent this downward spiral is a parental authority that has an incentive to protect the ecosystem and punishing the bad actors. In this case that is Facebook – its their environment and they are have done a very bad job of keeping it clean. Their mindset has always been – “atleast we’re better than myspace”.

The same race-to-the-bottom happens in all ecosystems – most recently witnessed in the financial industry. One would think we would have learned by now not to rely on “self-regulation”.

[...] their millions and have continued to do so without regard for their users (you can see more on that here). Now, a year later when called out by the media they scamper to blame the ad and offer networks [...]

I’ve just blocked their apps on facebook, anyone got a list of what other games they run on there ?

Just a note when it comes to different voting in stock classes…remember that the single largest company (by market cap) doing that type of thing today is…

…Google.

That’s right…the shares they have sold to the public have NO voting rights. None. Zero.

Zwinky is spyware – not the worst of it’s kind by a long way but spyware none the less.

And yet look at all the cpa networks promoting the zwinky ‘offer’:
http://www.findaffiliateoffers.com/index.php?function=search&search=zwinky

Ethics? What ethics? Not in the cpa/performance marketing industry anyway, it’s all about the money….

Even Microsoft run these scammy ads – they nearly brought gator when that was the tool of fast buck merchants – now, nearly all the major networks have adverts for acai berry – together with images of discoloured teeth and post-pregnant women that ‘magically’ get their figure back after drinking it – I heard eating the after birth is much more effective than acai berry…

Just read Zynga spends some $6M a month on Facebook, a large portion of their revenue. Just wow…

I remember one of the panelists in TC50 (Mayer?) saying that the viral based clothes tagging service could be one way social networks could make money.
Looks like Facebook found another.

I think you have to be a bit flexible – I must admit I have blocked the apps for a bit as a demonstration, but it is bigger than just them, so their CEO has really got to come up with something good – like getting Facebook to add a “report this app. for scam adverts” clearly visible for customers who are wary.

I LOL at all of you dissing Mark Pincus. EVERY company was and some still ARE doing this.. he’s coming clean and changing the way we did (no longer) business.

In interests of full disclosure, I work at zynga and if any of you had actually been to a sweatshop you wouldn’t dare to actually compare working in the computer industry where we get paid very well with free lunches and other perks to actual sweatshops where people get paid so little they sleep in 1 bedroom apartments with 10 other people because that is what they can afford.
I enjoy working at zynga, I do not feel taken advantage nor do any of my coworkers.

Mark is actually talking about this and not bothering to cover it up because it should be talked about and changed.

eh well it’s not the game that is bad – the business model isn’t bad either – if used with better quality/legit offers would be fine

- BUT the people with the marketing budget are REAL criminals paying to get this rubbish pushed to the average facebook user sat behind their screens with their creditcards/phone/dummy near by.

Easy money is scam money – if this CEO is saying to college kids the only way to succeed is to cheat your customers – he is doing what every bank sales manager probably told their teams – offer extras (as in things people don’t really need or can’t afford) and you get more bonuses.

real world /pretend world – same shit different world. As some might say

@archieGoodwin Spot on – social gaming is just the the tip of the iceberg, the bigger picture is the scam trio of: cpa networks, their affiliates and whoever is behind the shady offers you mentioned ["shady mobile offers, diet scams (hello acai!), homebiz offers, and teeth whitening etc.]

They (cpa networks, their affiliates and the shady companies running the scammy offes) are all making millions daily from deceptive advertising and ripping people off – Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Fox, media buy ad networks etc make millions from the ads and do little or nothing about them because they don’t want to lose the revenue?

A very short term outlook because long term damage is done to their brand equity and to the general perception of marketing and advertising online meaning it’s harder for the ethical companies to thrive…

When people find out the truth (or when they get scammed) they are going to (at least partly) blame the carrier – be that facebook, Google, ABC news website or wherever else they saw the ad.

The people who criticize ad revenue as a way to make money for these free sites don’t offer a lot of alternatives.

This is like TV back when cigarettes were marketed during commercial breaks. The shows are free, the commercial airtime isn’t.

So what now? The world will be a better place if we crucify Pincus, shut down Farmville, Moffia Wars, and lay off all Zynga employees? Probably not.

Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

So, are we seeing the ‘trade secrets’ that Zynga is suing everyone for in this clip?

People, people, PEOPLE!

It is not surprise that the undying motto of Silicon Valley is:

GET RICH OR DIE TRYING.

Does any of this actually surprise you? If it does, just stay away! You wouldn’t last a moment in those waters.

I worked closely with Offerpal and was deeply concerned about leadgen from the outset. Anu Shukla is one of the most ruthless and reckless players in Silicon valley. Will be interesting to see what she does next

Hang on a second people.

This is the General here. I am a former 6 stripe General and was the Secretary of State for the most powerful country on the planet.

Do you know who I am?!?!

Yes, I also sit on the board of the most PRESTIGIOUS AND REPUTABLE venture capitalist firm on the planet.

Now – you understand that this firm has a great track record.

Google, Intel, Apple – you name it, our name has been on them all.

That’s why we made the decision to back Mark and his great company. We LOVE backing winners.

Take for example Zynga’s Facebook poker game.

Firstly, ya’lll know that online poker is illegal right? My good old buddy and work colleague George Walker Bush passed a law back in 2006 called UIEGA and although there’s a couple of fools like Barney Frank and that Mendendez fellow in New Jersey both trying to make it legal – they have absolute zero chance to pass it through Congress.

So, lets take a good look at Zynga’s poker game in Facebook.

You can play for chips – the chips can be tradeable and you can also buy chips for REAL money. Even though you get a crapload of chips for say five bucks (I think you get 20,000 for $5 – but dont quote me on that) – you can then play for “money”.

Now, in respect to the prizes – players can win virtual gifts, points and chips to keep playing with. No, you cant cash these out for real currency, but you could – if you were a smart cookie – sell them off and trade them for real currency in secondary offline market.

So. You’re probably wondering why the BEST and MOST PRESTIGIOUS venture capital firm in the world has invested in a company that offers ILLEGAL ONLINE PLAY FOR MONEY POKER within the United States?

Oh yeah, sorry people I forgot to mention (getting old you know): I think there was this small online poker company called “PARTY POKER” that were shut down in the US and fined and I believe their founder actually paid the government USD$300 million to settle.

They got out, as did 888, Playtech and others in the hope that when the laws we changed and my buddies in Congress get greased enough that they do make it legal to play REAL MONEY online poker in the United States, they will be looked on favorably to get a license from Mr Obama’s Administration.

Sorry to get side tracked. You’re probably wondering why we invested into essentially a illegal online poker business?

You know what – I have no idea.

I think we need to review this.

I will have a little chat with Barack to see what we can do to keep our little Mark running…

I mean, he is a great guy after all right folks?

I have to attend to the garden now.

Thanks all for listening to my crap.

Over and out.

Retired General Colin

So, is he talking about all the stuff he’s suing other companies for stealing?

Anyone who is stupid enough to believe that less than a LARGE MAJORITY of Zynga’s revenue comes from scam offers is an idiot.

Pincus should be gone immediately.

He’s an embarrassment to his employees, investors and (if there are any) legitimate business partners.

Why are you covering for him, Michael?

Too little too late even if he’s not operating scams now. What he’s doing (and you’re saying) is giving license to scammers out there that it’s OK to scam, in fact it’s just “part of the process” to scam, to “work you way up”. I hope YOU get scammed by these companies you endorse, and perhaps you might have a different opinion.

+1

kind of funny timing with everything here. if facebook and myspace had been more on top of this, there’d be no room for pincus to be a hero. yet the platforms lagged, and now pincus washes his hands in a way. i guess pincus and his team get some kudos for seeing the writing on the wall (“the end of scams is near”), but that’s all the credit i think he deserves.

where’s does the mobile platform and its ad networks fit in all of this?

Very sad that these companies have been profiting from suckers who fall for these scams.
On the other hand, after at least 15 years of actively using the internet I have never been scammed…
I don’t download toolbars, I never take popularity tests or quizzes.
When the last FarmVille scam started yesterday (Farm Ville Gift Sender) I ignored and blocked it, while more gullible friends clicked right on and authorized this application to have full access to their data.
And I never sent money to Nigeria to help some poor sod that just need my money to get his money.
I am funny like this….

Michael,

When will the FTC shut down the biggest gambling parlor on the internet that is Zynga?

And yes, Zynga peddles gambling products to kids!

For Christ Sakes.

My kids started playing poker because of that damn Poker app on Facebook.

Why has Kleiner Perkins been allowed to get away with bankrolling a gambling den?

Pincus is an angel investor and large shareholder of Facebook stock (an insider told me he owns roughly 1.4 million shares) Facebook and Pincus are “pals” and that explains why FB allows this behavior to continue. It’s all about $$$ folks. Greed, ego, scamming, and money. Wonder when the karma part of the equation will kick in? Maybe that is what is happening now!

Zynga is a company that knows nothing about games. They don’t know why people think their games are fun, all they know how to do is copy everything else out there and hope something sticks. Whatever does, they then brand as a Zynga game, advertise the hell out of it, and then squeeze users out of every possible penny as soon as possible. This is not how to run a business for long term sustainability.

I never play these games because they’re obviously just scams trying to take as much money from you as possible but they’re disguised as cute little games. I guess when all your users are dumber than dog shit it doesn’t matter.

If Zynga had made Monopoly, you’d have to pay $50, fill out 3 surveys and spam 10 of your friends every time you pass go. That’s not my idea of a fun game. Eventually users will get smarter and realize this too, it will just take some time, but it’s inevitable.

Here is the thing, when did making games that were fun become not enough?

I have worked in the games industry for quite some time, I like playing games and I like having fun. If you build shit that is actually fun and interactive they will actually play your game.

But, as an industry we seem to have veered away from that, we seem to have created another industry in that we have created a pressed focus that drowns our customers in a wealth of piss that sucks them in and fucks them out.

Can you make money on Facebook gaming? Yes

Can you make money on Facebook gaming without completely fucking your moral compass? probably not.

Gaming is simple, it is pure and it is beyond disrepute, if you make something that is fun and engaging, you win. But, today the reality is, is that if you make something that is fun, you should monkey fun your end users.

I literally hate what this industry has become. I joined this industry a number of years ago and we are completely fucking ourselves. Not just a little bit, but a lot.

227,959 players online right now!

Gambling on Zynga Poker!

If that is not a case for the FTC, you tell me what is?

When will the government lawyers finally get off their asses and do an honest days work?

@ somedeveloperperson

it seems to me that pincus is only talking because he’s been busted read-handed bragging about scamming his game users and the crap is hitting the fan.

________

the offerpal scams have long been lamented on the zynga community forums but instead of doing anything about them … zynga just forbid people to talk about them. is that coming clean? no it’s not … it’s just trying to hide their dubious associations. they’re not even “just” associations … zynga knows darn well what’s going on with third party offers and they don’t care. and why don’t they care? because they’re guilty themselves of shonky practices within the game.

practices such as changing the rules of the game so that “some” things that have already been paid for are devalued so the only option for the user is to put up with it or pay more. or offering users lame and worthless incentives to spam their friends to advertise their games. or putting up links or pop-ups where they can be hit mistakenly, there-by using in-game currency, “some” of which has been paid for with real currency! and the list goes on ….

most players do eventually wise up and stop spending but zynga doesn’t care about them. they’ve already got their money. it’s the ever increasing new comers they’re are targeting. the next load of suckers so to speak. and there’s always an abundance of them due to the massive amount of spamming they encourage.

to those who say zynga aren’t the only guilty ones …. so what? i’m glad someone is taking the time expose them and i don’t even care if MA has some kind of personal agenda because as far as i’m concerned … they ARE GUILTY! they’re as guilty as sin for scamming, spamming and ripping off their own players and accomplices to offerpal who also scam their players.

i just wish “more” could be done to expose these frauds and i sincerely hope mike keeps on this one. i’d also like to know if there is anything us mere readers can do to help.

i don’t know anything about that. but there is so obviously some kind of back scratching going on between zynga and facebook. why else would zynga be allowed to keep blatantly spamming facebook pages.

i’ve known Mark Pincus for 15 years and have invested in every one of his companies. some have been very successful and some have been failures. he is a great person and a great entrepreneur.

anyone who knows Mark well will look at that video differently. that’s how Mark talks. he is colorful and he is adamantly pro-entrepreneur and anti VC. he’s had his companies taken away from him by VCs. he’s basically seen it all and he tells it like it is in colorful and quotable language.

Everyone who is “shocked” at this video ought to watch his recent startup school talk first and then go back and watch this video in that context. Mark was not talking about “scammy” stuff which is Arrington’s cause of the moment, he was talking about how you keep control of your company and control your destiny. he used some colorful examples and i am sure he wishes he hadn’t, but that’s Mark. that’s how he’ll always be and that is one of the many things i love about the guy.

and to your point about knowing what i know today, would I have invested in Zynga, the answer is “hell yes”. don’t come to conclusions based on one post in a tech tabloid. do your homework and figure out what is really going on in this company.

fred

I am surprised by the aggressive comments. this is so surprising to everyone? how many silly ads have we all seen for smiley faces, screensavers, etc…. that include adware, toolbars, downloads etc…don’t you all know enough to NOT CLICK ON THEM???

When I started my ad agency 8 years ago, i did work for diet pill companies, breast plumpers and lotions that grew hair. Am i proud of this work? absolutely not, but I did what i had to do to get started. Beating up Mark for running ads with downloads is silly. Almost every entreprenuer I know would have done the same thing.

Bravo.

If anyone feels that Zynga is a shady operator, all you have to do is stop using their apps.

I for one believe that unethical companies that continue to exploit their users cannot survive for long. Word will get around. You can’t fool all the people all the time.

Sooner rather than later that sour taste in your mouth of being tricked will get to you as you’re watching your cornfields grow, and you’ll give the whole thing up to maintain your self respect.

[...] how (and why) Twitter Spam works & makes money. Ironically, I was doing some research on the Zynga – Farmville – Facebook scam story during that process I discovered the Twitter [...]

Man says his name is guarav, Marks assist and his daughter takes all my stuff on yoville to triple it and my money. i meet girl suppodely Marks daughter who is going to stock up all of my yoville accounts, apparently working together, I come back and my accounts are stripped. I have been hacked and cannot get into my facebook. I am very upset.

I agree…Zuckerberg’s legs used to tremble on stage earlier..

Zynga is just malware. that’s all.

it’s not like we’re the only company doing it, so stop accusing us of committing crimes.

you can always reinstall all of windows to remove our premium pro software. most people find the functionality of 5 to 10 toolbars in their browser very helpful and helps them become more efficent. we like to say that our software makes you a “power user.”

–zynga.com
“Great games. Great toolbars.”

Sure he touched upon doing scammy stuff (e.g. the toolbar that he could not uninstall). You think he is going to go blow by blow in detail about ALL the scammy stuff he did in public? The fact that he seemed so cavalier about using scammy methods to make money is the issue. You can try to spin it as “Mark just being Mark” but then you make money off of him “just being Mark” eh?

Then you are just as crooked as he is. How many people have you trampled to get your money?

All of this is distracting from the fact that they are violating the Wire Act of 1962 by running a gambling operation and taking money over a wire for chips that will be used for that. Why nobody has talked to folks at the DoJ about this is beyond me. It’s quite obvious that they cannot control the black market for their chips, and that the entire poker operation makes money on the gambling addict segment of society – just google ZYNGA POKER CHIPS. This is corporate culture at Zynga – “let’s make money off people with problems”.

Are you kidding me? 5 to 10 toolbars makes you a power user? 5 to 10 toolbars is the exact freaking opposite of a power user!

Mark has lied in the past about changing things. Looks at tribe.net.

Fred Wilson says ‘knowing what i know today, would I have invested in Zynga, the answer is “hell yes”.’

That’s because he knew it then too. He’s too good a businessman not to have dug through Zynga to see what it does. He didn’t give a damn then and doesn’t now.

VCs make a living screwing entrepreneurs. Do you think they care about second-order screwing of ordinary people? Immoral is no problem at all. Illegal is a problem only if there’s a chance of getting caught. All part of the “risk profile.”

If you want morals, look to another industry.

looks like you’ve got a little pain behind those eyes ?

[...] or even that appear to have selectively blocked me so that I don’t personally see the ads. Their motivations are quite clear. What’s really disappointing is that Facebook, even after promising to enforce their rules, [...]

How about exposing Zynga on how they rip off the very people that help them rake in some of the money they do from their users. For a month now I haven’t been able to access farmville, funny thing about this is it happened the very same day infact within a half hour after I purchased via paypal, “farm cash”. Ever since then nothing but error codes…. I’m not the only 1 going through these error codes though. The non-paying customers as well are going through these. But I feel as if they ripped me off of money I could have very well spent elsewhere!! ( http://forums.zynga.com/showthread.php?t=185888 ) here is the url for complaints about these error codes, mind you they keep adding more things BUT refuse to fix what is already broken.

Freaking idiot.

Just because everyone is doing it isn’t justification enough to go around scamming people.

Reading the quoted text from the video speaks volumes about your boss, just an ordinary man trying to be a gr8 entrepreneur, and reading alot of books while at it.
“control your destiny?”total crap

You people have a lot of money now, you could adopt a more legit model and stop making excuses.

Today at 6″0 Clock news.

The mafia gone digital. Targeting aunts,grandmothers & soccer moms.

This is too much. Companies like zynga target the tech naive and unfortunately that accounts for a HUGE chance of market share as shown by the growth of zynga etc reaching millions of fans within months if not weeks.

Like lee stated when this business model is brought down to its knees we will witness a new scam rise.

PREDICTION!! the next huge facebook hit social site will be the one to allow the scams to run freely.

So…don’t click on the ad? C’mon… it’s only scamming if it doesn’t tell you what it does/is…and most of these silly things DO tell you – and idiots still click on them! You can play every Zynga game without paying a dime, clicking an ad or doing anything that is in the “scammer” bucket.

It’s only those who can’t earn the energy/coins/points/whatever fast enough that click on the offers – some pay cash directly to Zynga. MOST do it knowing that they are ginving a credit card number, and many even read tearms of service.

C’mon – blame the guy who puts the ads up for MAKING you click and download something? Get REAL! no one HAS to play, or has to CLICK ads or offers. It’s greed – even in a virtual world. Gotta have those crops NOW!

how many companies has mark started and what has become of them….tribe.net was a total joke that he tried to rip from someone else and the stupid m and a guys at kisco aka cisco got into buying….what the hell was support.com and freeloader…are all these three firms still around…what was kpcb.com thinking when they put money into a scam such as mark….yes, the other mark.
lance

http://www.kpcb.com/portfolio/portfolio.php?z

whatever happened to building things that make life better?

[...] Zynga CEO Mark Pincus: “I Did Every Horrible Thing In The Book Just To Get Revenues” | TechCrunch [...]

The greater question to ask is, how many people would be willing to trade places with Pincus?

How many people out there would willingly do EVERYTHING that has been done to date and more given the chance?

Let’s use neural/body scanning sensors that can rapidly interpret citizen behaviors and physiological signs and help us eliminate greedy people before they have a chance to enter the business world. :D

~AGAIN I WILL SAY:
WELCOME
TO
PLANET
EARTH.
a
r
t
h

[...] would take steps to remove scammy advertising offers from their social games. There have been a couple of missteps since then, and Facebook responded by taking Zynga’s newest game, FishVille, [...]

[...] would take steps to remove scammy advertising offers from their social games. There have been a couple of missteps since then, and Facebook responded by taking Zynga’s newest game, FishVille, [...]

[...] would take steps to remove scammy advertising offers from their social games. There have been a couple of missteps since then, and Facebook responded by taking Zynga’s newest game, FishVille, [...]

[...] damaging for several companies participating in virtual goods, as scams are revealed and less than stellar business practices are uncovered or alleged with many of the popular social games on Facebook (i.e. FarmVille, Restaurant City, [...]

@arrington please consider dumping that fishy ad network called ‘Google’ :) Their platform serves me questionable ads on this TC post to loose weight. It repeats the same ad 3 times within a single screen… Why use French banners on an English language site? I hope this is an ironic illustration of superior contextual advertising. Just shows advertising 2.0 still has a long way to go… Screenshot: http://www.twitpic.com/otkr2

Look at what Goldman Sachs is doing and tell me that this even comes close! And is Goldman being held publicly accountable? No, of course not. Welcome to the 21st Century kiddies — if you don’t cover your tail no one will do it for y–

I take that back. No matter what tail-covering we attempt, nothing will change as long as we’re just sitting in front of the computer complaining about it!

People in the streets. That is the one and the only thing that public/private entities fear and respond to.

Micheal:

Kudos to you and your investigative piece! This one really opened up the can of worms and its about time that some one did. I really blame the whole system, the vcs included for pushing a “revenues – no matter what” attitude.

A tip for you:
I am sure that if you try and pierce thru as to how young startups get their first million users (which translates to revenues and vc funding opportunities) , you will find a few skeletons in that closet also!

Seriously though – So fucking what?

All that you’re doing here Arrington is using your blog for your own agenda.

I’m sure you’ve done some things that you’re not proud of in business life to get additional revenue too.

It’s obviously from your previous post that you’re pretty clueless about the industry (your netflix comment showed this) so perhaps it’s time to stop the hate campaign.

Just my 2p.

Well said!

[...] replacement admitting that the company had, indeed, been running scammy ads. On Friday Arrington capped it off with a coup: he dug up a video clip from earlier this year in which Pincus, the CEO of Zynga, told a laughing [...]

[...] TechCrunch had been busy exposing questionable practices at Zynga, documenting the CEO of Zynga explaining the advantages of being scummy and just generally raising a ruckus, the New York Times were busy putting together an article about [...]

When I first saw the video and heard Mark’s comment – “We did anything possible just to just get revenues so that we could grow and be a real business.” – I really had my difficulties understanding this kind of philosophy. Does this mean that companies that don’t use misleading offers are not doing real business? We have been clean from the beginning and never had any doubts that we would not generate real business. We feel that our approach is good to generate the trust from users and thereby increase conversions.
With this policy we generate eCPMs between 50 and 800 Euro for our Publishers like Gameforge.com. It may be possible to generate even more profits, but who wants to earn his money by scamming children into mobile subscription offers?
So, obviously clean monetisation is already working well (at least in Europe).
I am looking forward to seeing how fast Social Game Companies adapt to clean/ethically correct standards now that Techcrunch is pointing on them.

i dont believe this someone actually thinks this. i am computer repair and that many toolbars will hhijack ur explore so u cant get anywhere!!! who they kidding the pay as u click has made them all rich scamming everyone in their way

[...] accused by Zynga of stealing employees and the company’s intellectual property. Of course, no one’s hands are clean in this [...]

Screw that guy. He is the root of all Evil. I know a lot of people that work on Facebook apps, that hate him. He is destroying competing companies and the social game industry itself.

As for paying for social games. I went to the virtual goods conference and found out that the offer space maturing into something better. With offers that people want and don’t scam.

If you want to pay you should. For those that don’t I would be grateful that we are moving into a paradigm where you don’t have to either pay upwards of $20 or pirate games.

Remember like the music; the people that make games are hard working talented folk that deserved to get paid. I am happy this industry is finding ways to “sell it to only those that want to pay for it”

Oh did I say “Screw that Guy”!!!?

[...] games. But there’s evidence this issue could have been addressed much sooner. TechCrunch found video (below) shot this past spring in which Zynga’s CEO said he “did every horrible [...]

[...] was inevitable, particularly after this video surfaced. Sacramento based law firm Kershaw, Cutter & Ratinoff, LLP is investigating [...]

Lol someone didn’t get the sarcasm

[...] was inevitable, particularly after this video surfaced. Sacramento based law firm Kershaw, Cutter & Ratinoff, LLP is investigating complaints [...]

[...] Zynga CEO Mark Pincus: “I Did Every Horrible Thing In The Book Just To Get Revenues” [...]

[...] games. But there’s evidence this issue could have been addressed much sooner. TechCrunch found video (below) shot this past spring in which Zynga’s CEO said he “did every horrible [...]

All the evidence is there!

I’m pretty sure he/she is kidding. Zynga definitely has a good sense of humor, but questionable sense of business ethics.

He’s doing a great job, boondo. So fuck off.

exactly how is google making money off of scams? back up your accusations

+2

It is a crime to infect consumers personal computers with any form of malware with the intent to earn revenue from it. You idiot.

I second that.

If the height of “every horrible thing in the book” is offering the zwinky toolbar in exchange for free poker chips, then this is the height of reckless journalism.

[...] This Techcrunch.com article by Mark Pincus (CEO of Zynga) said (on video), he did anything for profits in the formation of his company including giving virtual poker chips in exchange for a toolbar download which he said, he “couldn’t get rid of it (the toolbar)”. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/06/zynga-scamville-mark-pinkus-faceboo/ [...]

[...] line. FYI, this is the guy who got busted by TechCrunch for making money off scammy ads, then got further busted when TechCrunch dug up a video in which he talked about doing “every horrible thing” to [...]

I don’t think that’s really her.

Most of Zynga’s revenue is illegal. The poker chips they sell violate UIGEA in every way and they know it. How are they selling gambling goods on Paypal? Has anybody contacted the attorney general to prosecute Paypal for facilitating the gambling transactions? Has anybody contact Zynga’s merchant account provider? These steps must be taken to rid the gambling application off Facebook which is tarnishing their reputation.

[...] course, it took until Nov. 6 for video to emerge of Zynga CEO Mark Pincus admitting that some of the ads his company ran were [...]

I don’t like any of the Zynga games on Facebook except Cafe World but I notice a surge of CPU spike when playing.

The only thing that I spent real money on Facebook is buying birthday gifts to my friends, no way for any Zynga games…

Cliffordx.com

[...] Zynga’s most recent game FarmVille is the most played game on Facebook as of today. Zynga is believed to be making $100 million in revenues this year. However the company had offers within the games that were often scams as admitted by Zynga CEO Mark Pincus. [...]

[...] thanks to an article by Techcrunch, I’ve finally got a reason to point to for this [...]

[...] attorneys also point to Zynga CEO Mark Pincus‘ damning video confession that “I did every horrible thing in the book just to get revenues” in their complaint, indicating it will be a significant piece of [...]

He’s Probably another anti business Obama supporter too.

[...] a look at Techcrunch’s recent post, which features Zynga CEO Mark Pincus bragging about tricking users into installing things that [...]

For all those here leaving their ticked off remarks, here’s a thought. Did they make you install those things on to your computer. NO You did it all on your own. I am proud to say that I did none of those “free” offers for “godfather” points. I played the game as a “FREE” game. Don’t get mad at the guy in charge because he did what he needed to do to keep the company going so ALL of you could continue playing your game. GO ZYNGA

This is interesting and eludes to the fact that FaceBook was looking the other way while the ad dollars were flowing in.

[...] for a few tens of millions of dollars of advertising revenue. Which makes some sense. Until you watch this video and read this post. Banning DoubleDing at least seems like an easy [...]

[...] for a few tens of millions of dollars of advertising revenue. Which makes some sense. Until you watch this video and read this post. Banning DoubleDing at least seems like an easy [...]

This is what facebook’s “Verified App” status is supposed to be. That facebook actually gave these guys verified status: oops.

Firstly, these are games. A lot of children like to play games. Children who might be willing to give out their phone number cause the website told them to.

But if the “think of the children” act doesn’t wash with you, there is always the fact that the offers of “free toolbars” are innocent on the surface to Joe Public, even though to you and me it’s transparently adware/malware/”potentially unwanted program”/whatever the legal safe terminology for this junk is. The point is that the offers are mostly transparent in so far as they are legal, but ethically they are disgusting.

Arrington is and should be calling them out on their ethics, but it might be less “fraud” and more “deception”: the main issue I have here is that it is clear that facebook have codes of conduct against these practises, but cannot have ignored the size of Zynga’s empire which is built upon this strategy.

So what if Fred Wilson comments. Of course he (and Mark and every biz guy out there) is going to say whatever that best serves their interest – whether it’s the truth or not is another matter. Did you really expected otherwise?

Does anyone here naively think that someone would actually admit that they’re wrong (even if they are) if their admitting does not serve their own interest to begin with?

If you want to tell if someone is truly a crook or not, just look at his incentives. If the incentive to be a crook is bigger than other alternatives, he will be a crook.

[...] billion then this is just a stupid question because you’re going to make a lot of money. Well if ethics are not a problem. Of course there is also the valid point that not everyone is a Microsoft, Google, Apple, or [...]

[...] from a very interesting article  titled: Zynga CEO Mark Pincus: “I Did Every Horrible Thing In The Book Just To Get Revenues” http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/06/zynga-scamville-mark-pinkus-faceboo/ “Zynga (the [...]

i’ve been trying to get zynga off my fb account for a few months now. it can’t be gotten rid of. i have been corresponding with them for a couple of weeks to fix this issue, and their customer service is totally inept.

when you say don’t get mad at the guy in charge, you are obviously stupid. people on fb should not have to worry about malware from third party apps, otherwise they won’t use fb anymore.

so sure, i didn’t have to play those games. but i certainly didn’t expect that i would never be able to get rid of the game it’s self, and i didn’t click on any ‘free stuff’ links. seriously, it can’t be removed from my fb acct!

not only that, but mark pincus is the world’s largest douche ever. i have it on good authority that he really sux. i am not surprised he would purposefully do things to harm zynga users. he totally lied to everyone on tribe, why should this be any different? people like pincus do not deserve to be rich.

i personally know people who work for zynga. they have told me they hate the place, but it pays so well they stay on. scamming is hugely profitable, apparently.

so why doesn’t fb get rid of zynga? why isn’t fb protecting it’s users from this crap?

Justine, you really think that those games are fun? have you actually paid to play them? i have often wondered about people like you, how can you not know those are the dumbest games ever??? i console myself by remembering not everyone can be smart enough to actually engage a real game.

go find good games, that are actually worth spending money and time on, and play those. even neopets is better than zynga… and they don’t scam you to play their games.

i’m appalled anyone thinks the bottom-feeder games of zynga are entertaining for more than the moment it would require to see how badly they suck.

kathy, people like you make mark pincus a very rich douchebag.

why make excuses for him? why is it okay for there to be malware anywhere ever?

mark pincus is a self deluded idiot. he thinks of himself as progressive, and charitable. have you ever seen his blog? he really thinks of himself as god’s gift to the internet. he listens closely when people tell him what a great stand up guy he is, because it flatters his ego to let other idiots blow sunshine up his bum.

he is amazingly good at dodging issues, and only accepting praise. he’s a lying cheater, and a scam artist supreme.

just try and make him face the truth, he’ll run crying, i guarantee it.

wow fred, way to fall on your own sword. you just admitted to being as much of a criminal as pincus. you two must have quite a social contract together, sitting around over drinks, preening and telling each other how beautiful you both are…

what a joke.
i’m so glad people are getting wise to this bullshit.

[...] Zynga reportedly brings in over $100 million in revenue (a proportion of which, admittedly, is driven by schemes in which users receive virtual currency when signing up for questionable special [...]

Zynga’s CEO has cost myself and many others alot of time and grief. If I ever see him in public there’s “a very good chance” I’ll bitch slap him and make him cry. I’ll do my 60 day’s in county lock up, go home and upload the video for the world to see and enjoy.

try using a very little program called unlocker… it will delete anything although not necessarily straight away..you might need to reboot to finalize the deletion… it also as the name say’s..unlocks things that have a locking handle on them..CHEERS AND GOODLUCK… by the way.. i dont give much of a toss as to how zynga run thier company since there is stuff all i can do about it anyway, but i sure as hell care about all the farked up glitches and problems which their collective minds just cannot get together to fix, and they are getting worse. Is that all part of the plan too???.. to fark us all around day in and day out???.. If not then i suggest YOU ALL(ZYNGA TECHS AND STAFF) GET OFF YOUR COLLECTIVE ARSEHOLES AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT FORTHWITH, SINCE YOU ALL HAVE THE MONEY TO DO IT AY…

facebook and zynga are both scammers

[...] the hardest: Playing that YouTube video for him at the very top of the show and asking him exactly what he was thinking. He answers in the [...]

I’d rephrase that with “ARE winning” nothing changed, the ecosystem remains the same.

The only thing that may happen is that the key players will be changed. Zynga will get replaced by Mynga which will do the same exact thing, grow to hundreds of millions in revenue, until it gets called out and the cycle repeats.

We are not talking about a crappy little site with thousands in revenue doing this, we are talking about companies that will make millions from this.

For many people, the game is worth the marbles.

Legit sites like my http://styleguidance.com , just can’t compete when the competitor can resort to stuff like this to fill their coffers millions to crush the legit sites with.

[...] the most part we left Zynga alone, until we were slammed in the face with CEO Mark Pincus on video saying “I Did Every Horrible Thing In The Book Just To Get Revenues.” Pincus himself said [...]

[...] the most part we left Zynga alone, until we were slammed in the face with CEO Mark Pincus on video saying “I Did Every Horrible Thing In The Book Just To Get Revenues” (how do you take that [...]

[...] the most part we left Zynga alone, until we were slammed in the face with CEO Mark Pincus on video saying “I Did Every Horrible Thing In The Book Just To Get Revenues” (how do you take that [...]

[...] ad until you click on it. My uneasiness with applications are even reinforced when once I read the article from TechCrunch about Zynga’s CEO openly admitting that he’s scamming Facebook users. This is Zynga, I [...]

[...] book just to get revenues.” TechCrunch cut the 30-minute speech down to the part where Pincus admitted that scamming was an early part of Zynga’s business model and posted it online. Still, more [...]

I AM BLOCKED/RESTRICTED FROM FARMVILLE. I DID NOT BLOCK IT, IT IS MY FAVORITE GAME…JUST BOUGHT FVBUCKS…NOW MY FARM IS TOTALLY GONE AS IS MY MONEY….WHAT CAN I DO TO GET THE GAME BACK?

How do I get Farm Ville off of my Compture. I just don’t want it any more

[...] Although Zynga may be the master of monetization now, at least Nexon wasn’t associated with Scamville. Even Ngmoco is doing it with their game “Eliminate” and Aurora Feint is offering a [...]

[...] this: So I funded the company myself but I did every horrible thing in the book to, just to get revenues [...]

Zynga’s customer support is terrible, they don’t take care of complaints on a timely basis, and all Zynga keeps doing is adding more stuff to games that don’t work….this company is money hungry and its become more and more obvious with each passing day.

This is just ONE of the many scams Zygna is doing! The current one is making completed Mafia Wars jobs disappear over and over again, while people are paying REAL money to complete the jobs. This is blatant FRAUD. Facebook developers do absolutely nothing, and Zynga gives nothing but prefab responses to try and pacify its angry users. I sincerely hope they get sued, and Facebook as well for allowing it!

[...] If you had told me that 11 years after the introduction of EverQuest that the future of virtual worlds was in a low budget, mindless game about planting vegetables I would have had laughed at you. Even harder to believe is seeing the notion of virtual worlds being marginalized by one of its pioneers and being reduced to marketing gimmick in order to help sell a cheesy game on Facebook designed to suck you dry of your hard earned money. [...]

[...] Raph states that core gamers should be happy with the current progress that the industry is making.  Eventually, all this innovation will be good for the core gamer, goes the line of reasoning.  Web games are the future and eventually, the whole Facebook as a platform will catch up with today’s AAA game releases giving the core gamer something to cheer about.  With all due respect to Raph, why should the core gamer that helped pay for the “progress” aimed at the mass market have to wait for a next generation AAA title?  The core gamer has never had to wait on the sideline while the industry reinvented itself.  Why there are prominent people in the industry with such an outlook on the core gaming public is beyond me.  The core gamer is happy to spend a large amount of money on your game.  The core gamer remains loyal to your game and eventually your franchise.  The core gamer has been paying the way for today’s mass market progress with every purchase in the past.  This reminds me of the attitude that the cell phone companies have with their existing customers.  They’ll give them a discount on services only when they threaten to leave or when they are new to their service.  Incentives go to the customer that threatens to stop paying or has never given your company a dime of revenue while existing customers that helped pay for your marketing get nothing.  Revenue at all costs.  Screw the customer; Zynga’s even confessed to it. [...]

[...] Games-Anbieter Zynga und Zwinky, einer Malware-Toolbar, die sich nicht mehr vom PC entfernen ließ, gab Zyngas CEO Mark Pincus offen zu, mit diesem Betrug den Gewinn des Unternehmens gesteigert zu haben, um Zynga zu dem zu machen, was [...]

[...] and at least seen Farmville in ‘action’. I’ve also done my fair share of reading concerning Zynga’s business practices and what makes the business as a whole [...]

[...] that it’s not built on trust, but quite the opposite. The real incentive is for these guys to “do every horrible thing in the book just to get revenues,” as Mark Pincus of Zynga was caught on tape [...]

[...] Also, some interesting things about Zynga's CEO Mark Puncus scamming their first customers… http://techcrunch.com/2009/11/06/zyn…inkus-faceboo/ __________________ [...]

[...] last year for allegedly displaying questionable ads in its games. Last November, TechCrunch posted a video of Zynga CEO Mark Pincus admitting that he “did every horrible thing in the [...]

[...] accessing their teacher’s photos to post embarrassing (drunken) pictures of them round school and dodgy businesses sharing customer data with spamming [...]

I play Zynga poker a lot on face book, there's an imitation of a guy name Marks Pincus who sent me a message, when I opened it, it took me to a Zynga site. Anyhow, I noticed 1.4 million of my chips were stolen.

Search the name on Face Book, it's not Mark Pincus, it's Marks Pincus. (with a s after Mark) Facebook won't do anything about it.

This is a very interesting game, especially after I see a place to get hacked chips up to 400 Billion @http://bit.ly/9Z2Gzl

[...] have, of course, also been some more interesting suggestions about the means by which Zynga has become so profitable, but it seems that the company has since [...]

[...] Dan blijft optie twee over: er maar op vertrouwen dat de appjes-bakkers keurige mensen zijn. Juist, ja. Bovendien: je hele hebben en houden worden ook verstuurd als contacten op Facebook die [...]

sadly i think the prospect of going public and selling the company is what is driving mark pincus to create so much subterfuge.hate to see what they do now with revenues dropping so fast… :/
they already ban users who ask simple honest questions in forums. they ban users who do too well in the game. they ban users who are smarter then them…. hell they ban users that report scammers and hackers in the games. and despite the FACT that all the numbers are dropping inside all zynga games aside from treasure isle,they claim their valuation to be higher then expected???? i really see a big collapse coming as soon as facebook stops hiding the application statistics. :/ i was monitoring yoville's mau/dau specifically and it was in a fatal slide as the graph shows… now for 11 days there has apparently been no change but i've watched a "boycott yocash" (yoville money) event grow in 2 days from having 50-100 users for the first month
to nearly a thousand! in 2 days,just through word of mouth since events dont exatly go viral often

just throwin it out there :/

Shady, yet for some reason people think this is how capitalism should work.

well dude, someone stole over 600k from my account last night., i played right before i went tot bed, and when i woke up they were all gone…, i'm pissed.. man.., i've been playing zynga games for a lont time now.., and i think i deserve to get those chips reimbursed by you guys, or you need to fix this problem.., or u lose a customer from your app

Facebook’s users and customers are advertisers. They’re the ones who pay the bills, so they’re the ones whose interests are protected.

it’s not like we’re the only company doing it, so stop accusing us of committing crimes.