Zynga was not only the cover story in BusinessWeek, they’ve made it into Fortune. For an explanation of Zynga, see my previous post.
What is a social game? Fortune explains it as a free online application accessed through Facebook, MySpace and similar sites. They’re free! But Zynga has cleverly thought of a way to get you to pay for them.
They will sell you components – which you have to pay for in real money – to keep playing the free game. The game never ends and you can play it in a short stretch of time. Brilliant! And it’s not just young techies who do this. Fortune profiled a 37-year-old mother of three who is a devotee of Farmville. She spent $100 in the last few months on it. Someone restrain me from starting...
Here’s my question – why don’t other free sites follow the model and start charging for something?
