Dissapointed in the vibe of the promotion

LOL were you aware that portalarium has its own poker game that you can play on facebook? It had another big game and partnered with zanga to have people play it. I think they are focusing on SotA now.

This article is taken out of context. You don't even know why they partnered with Zanga. Do your research and find out what they did with all that.

 

Oh I PvP, not the cowardly player killer style. Good thing there will be a switch so I can concentrate on what I feel like doing.

I will be giving my input on PvP. Don't worry. I like the way swtor does PvP and am pushing for that model.


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$$$

 

I haven't seen anything, anywhere that says Zynga is a financial investor in the company. A partnership is just that; not an ownership deal or control over the product. It's a strategic relationship where the sum is hopefully greater than the parts.

I imagine (if SotA is even going to leverage Zynga) that it would be related to promotion and a limited publishing agreement.

 

Zynga = Big Time, SoTA = small potatoes...who is going to be leveraging who?

*Don't get me wrong, I love Zynga and Zynga products.

 

Zynga is a big player in social gaming. Portalarium began working on simple social games to understand that market and gamer environment, so they could have an understanding of how to use social media to leverage the friends graph within other games like SotA. Partnering with Zynga, I believe, was done so they wouldn't have to start from scratch trying to design a poker game and collector game within that medium. Thru the partnership they would have access to resources and develop a knowledge base as well.

There's no reason to infer that LB would look to Zynga for directional input on SotA. Reread Richard Garriot's Ultimate RPG proposal.

 

Big potatoes, small potatoes; it doesn't mean crap.

It means one company needs exposure and the other company could get a piece of the action. They'd both be leveraging each other.

Portalarium could use the extra eyeballs, and perhaps even use Zynga as a distribution partner (as well as possibly Steam and their own distribution method) and Zynga gets some dimes on every SotA sold through them.

I work for a very large software company that has a consulting arm that does a lot of implementations and on-site support. The company also partners with smaller external consulting firms to do the same thing. Why? Wouldn't that just take money away from our consulting? Yes and no. Having another set of groups pushing our products sells product licenses and in-house support contracts. While they get the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars for implementation, we'll sell millions in product and support. It also means there are third-party advocates pushing our products. We don't have to pay them salaries or health insurance. If times were to get slow, we don't have to lay off anyone, and that makes for better PR.

 

If you want to know a little more about Zynga, here is a Reddit AMA (ask me anything) from a laid off employee.

http://www.reddit.com/comments/1fpbv1

Enjoy!

 

Sounds like a typical startup-gone-big story, with some sleazy executive crap in there too!

Not all that relevant since they aren't buying Portalarium, and so far there is no proof they have a financial stake in the company.

 

So is this more of a business fact finding mission for you were you can get into the development+ forums and check out what they are doing, and not so much ideas to get the game right for every other smalltime investor.

 

Ha, I wish. The company I work for does not make games.

 

The purpose of my post was just to give people a background of the company.

 

Well just did my some research and the only articles I could find were old articles talking about Zynga and Portalarium partnering up for a game called Ultima Collector

 

That wasn't what was infered.

Tell yourself whatever it takes so you can sleep better at night, friend.

 

Well, you wanna give me some proof that Zynga has any kind of control over SotA?

 

Not my job, friend.
You are smart and capable of researching if you want to, besides you wouldn't take my word for it anyways...even if I showed you my sources and explained my thoughts and reasoning.

You have already made up your mind.

 

No, it doesn't work like that. You make an accusation, you need to back it up, or back off of it. If you have sources, show them to me. Otherwise, you're just spouting bullshit and you should retract your statement. I often remember the famous quote, "That's how rumors get started."

Despite all that, I have searched. I haven't seen anything other than a distribution deal (PDF) for Ultimate Collector over the Zynga Platform that, at the time, had over 300 million people. It was a pre-existing program that many other third-parties have used to distribute their games. The next press release (PDF) that talks about the funding round only mentions the previous news that Portalarium partnered with Zynga for Ultimate Collector and "products to be announced later." No investment of Zynga in Portalarium. In fact, one article even mentions that Zynga historically acquired companies that they want to distribute, but that they were moving away from that. Zynga is a public company, and any investment in another company would be public, and since I can't find mention of this, it could not have happened.

The other possibility is that Zynga has control over the product via the distribution deal. We haven't seen anything or heard anything from Richard that SotA would be distributed over the Zynga platform, though I suppose it's possible. It doesn't really fit the Zynga mold though. Richard has stated that SotA will not be a 'Facebook' game, which I suppose could fit the off-Facebook strategy Zynga was attempting to move to a year ago. There will be a no-DRM release, so I think that would have to be outside of Zynga or Steam or any of the other major digital distributors. It is entirely possible that SotA is one of a new kind of Zynga game; one that isn't a web game, but still has those hooks to the social connections that make casual gaming so popular. Though if that's the case, why isn't Zynga trumpeting it?

So yes, I have searched, and I can't find anything that is even remotely close to what you claim. I am a reasonable man, so just show me proof and I will look at it and analyze it as I have done in the preceeding paragraphs with what I could find. If it's so clear-cut, I should change my mind in no time. Your comments however, do paint the image of not being able to back up what you say. I will patiently await your reply.

 

Just to add some more perspective on that partership with Zynga to publish (the now defunct) Ultimate Collector:

http://blog.games.com/2012/09/26/richard-garriott-zynga-interview/

I think this quote is very relevant:
"Not just Zynga's, but lots of social games use monetization strategies that, as a hardcore gamer, I find offensive, frankly," Garriott admits. "I really don't like games that constantly pester me to pay. I find it radically interferes with my suspension of disbelief. So, I'm devoted in the Ultimate RPG game to finding novel monetization strategies that don't offend me like some of these do. Yet, it's still really important to learn those lessons, and there's no better place to learn them then by having Zynga as a partner."

 

What Zynga was really great at, was gathering data from its players. When Sota speaks of grouping players together with things in common, be it friends, same parts of the story, etc.. I believe they're speaking of utilizing the data-gathering techniques they learned from Zynga, to help make 'selective multiplayer' a successful platform that we will all enjoy.

 

My breakfast bread is just partnering with my butter.
And it has no influence on the scrambled eggs i am waiting for.