Zynga Kills Petville and Angers Virtual Pet Owners Social game developer Zynga started as a leading player in the industry, with millions of active users around the world. It features popular titles such as Castleville, Mafia Wars, Farmville 2, Words with Friends, and Zynga Poker. Most people play the games with their friends on Facebook or on Zynga’s own site (Zynga.com). Founded by Mark Pincus in 2009, Zynga’s popularity peaked in 2012, when revenue topped $1.2 billion.Unlike most online game companies, Zynga earns most of its rev-enue from in-game purchases of virtual goods rather than advertising. The games are free to play, but advancement can take a long time. Play-ers who want to advance more quickly can purchase game currency, energy points, or virtual goods.

Social games rise and fall in popularity, and when Zynga’s share prices began to plummet in 2012 following some missteps, the company began cost-cutting. Zynga pulled the plug on underperforming games, and one that was killed off with barely 2 weeks’ notice was Petville. Devoted players were outraged. Many had invested years in nurturing and caring for their digital pets, sharing the adventure with their friends and family on Facebook. Thousands posted their sadness and anger on social media sites, with comments like those in Figure 10-27.Clearly, the players had an emotional investment in their virtual pets and also in the social dimension of the game that Zynga’s software specifically encourages. For example, players earned points by visiting neighbors, who were actually real-life friends with their own virtual pet in the game. Points mounted up quickly as more neighbors joined and exchanged gifts.Zynga tracks and analyzes player behavior closely and uses the big data to add features that ensure players log in frequently to develop that strong attachment. Zynga wisely chose not to let someone’s virtual pet die from hunger if the player did not feed it daily. 

However, the pet was taken to the pound, and the owner had to find ways to earn enough cash to retrieve it.Zynga offered credits for its other games, but Petville players were quite dismayed by the company’s lack of sensitivity. Certainly, companies have to shut down badly performing products, but there is a difference between terminating a line of shampoo and killing off a game like Petville. Customers are not likely to mourn the loss of a favorite hair product in the same way they would a virtual puppy they have been nurturing for years.Even though the terms of service agreement gave the company vast leeway to terminate services or close down games and Zynga’s metric-driven business strategy justified the shutdown, its approach gener-ated a lot of ill will. At best, it was a customer relations blunder, but it also raised ethical questions. The company’s software is specifically designed to create such emotional ties, so observers thought that the company should have recognized they existed and arranged for a more sensitive closing. Certainly more advance notice was warranted. Rather than assume players would happily switch to another game and forget about their pets, Zynga might have held online ceremonies to bid fare-well or planned a clever happy ending in which the pets founded their own world together.

As of 2016, Zynga continues to struggle, posting large losses despite the popularity of some of its games. Founder Mark Pincus stepped down as CEO for the second time, unable to turn the company around.Zynga has a wealth of talent, however, and time will tell whether Zynga can use its big data to better understand its own customers and develop a profitable business.

10-22. When Zynga dropped Petville abruptly, virtual pet owners pro-tested that they had been harmed. This ethical argument uses a utilitarian framework. How might you argue from a natural laws and rights ethical framework that Zynga was wrong?

10-23. The suddenness of Zynga’s action created a firestorm of customer discontent. What are other ways that Zynga might have handled the discontinuance of a failing game without creating such protest?

10-24. How is the ownership of digital information determined? Is it ethically wrong to deny people access to owned information if that denial causes harm?