OMGPOP Engineer Refuses To Join Zynga, Calling It 'Evil'
It's worth reading Shay Pierce's rant on evil:
An evil company is trying to get rich quick, and has no regard for the harm they're doing along the way. It's not making things of value, it's chasing a gold rush.
An evil game company isn't really interested in making games, it's too busy playing a game -- a game with the stock market, usually. It views players as weak-minded cash cows; and it views its developers as expendable, replaceable tools to create the machines that milk those cows.
It follows unsustainable practices (like cloning or even completely screwing innovators; or abusing viral channels until they have to be curtailed) -- all practices which, in the long-term, not only make things worse for every other company in the industry, but ultimately for itself. Zynga is not the only one of these, but yes, they fit my definition.
This is not the first time we've heard Zynga called eVille:
Pincus wants to know why people haven't thanked him for his contributions to humanity.
- Zynga exploits children and financially depleted addicts.
And so on. These accusations have been going on for years.
Meanwhile, Zynga insiders are selling shares -- even Pincus is selling 15%.
Zynga fires back by saying they were going to fire him anyway.
I still think it's amazing that OMGPOP was going to run out of money a few months after Draw Something was released.
There's a fine like between success and FAIL.