Zynga Again

A week ago Mark Pincus, co-founder and CEO of the social game provider Zynga, indicated during a conference call with industry analysts that the company would likely be launching a real money online poker game in 2013.

I’ve mentioned here before my dislike of Facebook and how I don’t have an account. I did once upon a time, although I used it very little and ultimately deleted it once I became uncomfortable with all of the privacy-related issues. Yeah, I saw that story on the Forbes site last week about how some are wanting to suggest that being a “Facebook abstainer” makes a person “suspicious,” but in truth that seemed mostly just another dumb internet story-slash-bit-of-gossip that got passed up and down the virtual grapevine.

You know, like people often do on Facebook. (And on Twitter, which I do use.)

When I did have an account I tried out the Zynga poker game a few times. Like just about every online poker game not called PokerStars, I found it clunky and lacking in various ways, thus making hard to stay interested long enough to mess with it for long.

That said, I nonetheless remain interested in reading about Zynga and its plans. Am kind of fascinated, actually, with the whole idea of players currently spending real money to purchase poker chips with which to play on the site. And intrigued by what might happen when the real money games finally come to those non-U.S. countries (mostly in Europe) where Zynga can presently offer such.

Zynga stock has been down significantly since its initial public offering last year. A piece on Bloomberg last week about how Zynga’s shares had fallen during the second quarter of this year spelled out how three games -- Farmville, Cityville, and Zynga Poker -- made up 60% of the company’s revenue during that period, with poker representing 18% of it.

It’s been reported in various places that less than 3 percent of people playing Zynga games (including poker) ever spend any real money on them, and those that do apparently spend very little on average -- like just a couple of bucks a month. Of course, with 33.8 million active players playing 55 million hands of Zynga poker each day (according to Venture Beat), even those modest numbers end up producing some decent cabbage.

As reported in an article on Tech Crunch about the conference call, Pincus talked about how Zynga had various real money gambling games “in development” (i.e., not just poker), and that they “intend to release them into markets that are regulated and open, subject to our getting licensing.” He also noted how the U.S. is “obviously an attractive market” but also obviously not open for business at present.

When it comes to online poker, Zynga apparently is looking at possibly buying the Ongame Network -- or at least some of their online platforms -- to help get into the online poker game, as Nick Jones mentions in a report about Zynga for PokerFuse. See Jones’ article for a terrific (and comprehensive) overview of the whole history of Zynga thinking about getting into the business of offering real money games online.

Other Zynga casino-type games like Zynga Bingo and Zynga Slingo (which sort of mixes slots and bingo) are quite popular, too, and I would imagine versions of them are also being developed for this real money launch next year. No idea what the scene is currently when it comes to online casino sites about which one can learn more here, but I imagine Zynga jumping into it would have significant effect.

I remember many years ago writing a couple of posts here (Part 1 & Part 2) about online poker and how it had kind of an “outlaw” status in two different ways: (1) it’s gambling, which automatically represents something morally objectionable for some; and (2) it’s online, which also made it suspect for various reasons.

Feel like that latter issue -- which would include people having once had a lot of hesitation when it came to sending real money to and fro over the internet -- has diminished significantly since I wrote those posts. People seem ready to share a lot more than their credit card or bank info online these days.

What that attitudinal shift might mean for Zynga, who knows? Like I say, while I don’t play Zynga poker and am essentially on the sidelines when it comes to the company’s plans to move into real money games, I’m curious to see what comes of it all. And what effect Zynga’s next moves might have (if any) on online poker in its current state.

A Zynga Zinger

I have played Zynga poker a few times on my iPhone. I think I logged onto Facebook once long ago to play, although as I have noted here before I am so strongly averse to Facebook I essentially ignore the account I have. In fact, my distaste over having to log into the Facebook account in order to get to the game on my phone has prevented me from opening it more than just a few times out of curiosity.

But there are millions who aren’t reluctant like me who love playing Zynga poker. Like eight million a day, or something, and over 30 million playing each month. Thus today’s news regarding Zynga Poker perhaps wanting to get involved with real money games isn’t utterly surprising, though it is still a bit of an eyebrow-raiser given how it follows a long sequence of suggestions to the contrary.

In fact, it was only just a couple of months ago that Zynga Casino General Manager Lo Toney was telling eGaming Review that his outfit had “no plans to enter the real-money market.” That echoed a sentiment Toney and the Zynga folks had been reiterating for most of 2011, including after Black Friday when the online poker world as it previously existed was suddenly turned upside down.

The Entities over at Wicked Chops are today pointing us to a story on a site called “All Things D” in which an unnamed Zynga spokesperson is telling them “that there’s an interest in the real money gambling market” among (some? many? a few?) Zynga players and that Zynga is “in active conversations with potential partners to better understand and explore this new opportunity.”

In an Insider piece the Entities consider the many steps needed before Zynga could enter the real money online poker market outside of the U.S., let alone be part of the game here in the States should legislation allow that to occur. The “All Things D” article actually breaks down the situation quite well itself, if you’re interested in reading more about where things presently stand for Zynga and its prospects.

The timeline would include getting a real money platform together, developing it, launching the sucker outside of the U.S., then following the path of other European sites have done and form a partnership with a U.S. casino brand in anticipation of legislation opening the door to America. All of which would take a while.

It is interesting to step back and contemplate what this possible crossover by Zynga from “social gaming” to real money gambling might look like. It makes me think of two possible futures for online poker, both very unlike one another and different as well from what we all grew accustomed to during the “rise and fall” of online poker in the U.S. over the past decade.

There’s the version in which online poker undergoes some sort of transformation to become something more like social gaming as it presently exists, only with real dollars going back and forth in a more conspicuous way than is currently the case with most games. (Real money exchanges do occur in “social gaming” -- in significant amounts in some cases -- although the majority of those who play such games are not part of that segment of the player base engaging in such.) In other words, a future game consisting of a weird “kinda-sorta-poker” that is even further removed from the live game than online poker has been.

Then there’s the heavily-regulated version of online poker that federal or state governments might allow to happen in which game play options will be necessarily limited, with all sorts of assumptions we grew to make about online poker getting thrown out as no longer permissible (e.g., multitabling, cash transfers, certain game variants, other volume-limiting restrictions, etc.). This version would be like the old game, but with lots of missing pieces players will initially complain about before either accepting the changes or giving up.

As I think out loud about this, it occurs to me that there is probably a third future for online poker in the U.S. that I’m not smart enough to envision. I still think whatever it turns out to be, it will be so markedly different from what we experienced before as to be unrecognizable in comparison.

(EDIT [added 8:30 p.m.]: For more on the Zynga speculation -- and why that possible future in which the Facebook game becomes a real money player in online poker is not necessarily likely -- see Bill Rini’s post "Zynga Ready for Real Money Gaming or Trying to Hide Failures?")

Talkin’ Zynga PokerCon

Been reading here and there about this Zynga PokerCon event that happened at the Palms last weekend. Like a lot of poker media, I was on the list of folks receiving emails and invites over the last few weeks, all of which succeeded in getting me at least vaguely intrigued in the sucker, though not enough to hop on a plane and fly across the country for it.

Zynga is a social network game developer with an especially big presence on Facebook thanks to various games like Farmville, Mafia Wars, and the very popular Zynga Poker game. I guess they're involved with MySpace and other networking sites, too, but Facebook is obviously the one most know about and use these days.

I don’t really do Facebook, but I do have an iPhone, and since hearing about the PokerCon I did download the Zynga Poker app and goofed around on it a little. Both fun and functional, and while chatting with friends and ordering virtual mixed drinks on the little iPhone screen is a little awkward, I can certainly see how the game has attracted many -- reportedly 38 million -- who play it (mostly on Facebook and MySpace).

Sounded like the first day of the event was taken up with some seminar-like “training” sessions (by “Zynga Poker University”) led by Annie Duke, with some meals and mixers filling out the schedule. The second and final day included more meals and parties as well as 500-player poker tournament for attendees that cost $125 to enter and featured a $100,000 prize pool. (Here is the full schedule.)

My impression from reading through various reports on the event was that it appeared -- like the game itself -- to be kind of a social networking opportunity allowing media, Zynga reps, and a number of poker pros to connect. Seemed like a genuinely fun time for a number of people there, too.

Some of my friends and colleagues were there. Pokerati Dan was at PokerCon, providing audio, video, and textual reports. Michele Lewis also posted frequently about happenings at the Palms. F-Train stopped in and has offered “Some Quick Thoughts” on what he saw as well.

B.J. Nemeth, who has recently begun a nifty site called “Sport of Poker” where he’s collecting a lot of his photography, Jess & B.J. vids, and opining on all things poker, was there, too, and has written up a very interesting opinion piece about the significance of Zynga and the event.

In his piece, Nemeth addresses speculation about Zynga’s possible online-poker-related intentions in the U.S., specifically the idea that should some sort of federal law ever be passed allowing for the licensing and regulating of online poker in America, Zynga has positioned itself to swoop in and instantly become a major player in the newly-created market.

Nemeth expresses doubts about that possibility -- doubts reinforced by some of his interactions with Zynga people last weekend. But he adds an interesting point, too, about the demographic of players he saw enjoying themselves at Zynga PokerCon -- many older, and a lot more women than one typically finds at the tables in your average poker room, live tourney, or getting most of the attention in the online poker world.

In other words, the event seemed to highlight for Nemeth something potentially very significant about poker’s current status in American culture -- namely, that poker is popular not just among young men in their late teens or early 20s, but across a much wider range of players than we perhaps realize from inside the little world shaped by the sites we play on, the WSOP and other tours, the forums we frequent, and so forth.

It’s a revelation I’ve also had over the last couple of months while teaching this “Poker in American Film and Culture” class. There I’ve had the chance to “talk poker” with a different group of people with whom I usually do so, and to talk about poker differently, too, as we together try to assess its significance and place in the U.S. today.

Fact is, poker’s significance to American culture is a lot broader and more varied than a lot of us might realize, something the PokerCon appears to have helped demonstrate.