This great infographic puts the numbers on Zynga and Rovio side by side. With Rovio planning an IPO next year, it is doomed to the same crisis as Zynga? Can Zynga even hope to emulate Rovio's success...

If you've been to a games industry conference over the last couple of years, you have probably heard some guy in a hat at the back of the room shout "You should have gone Freemium!" That was...

Glance at the Appdata chart for Cityville and you’d be forgiven for thinking that Zynga had a terrible weekend. MAUs fell from around 75 million to around 55 million on a single day. If you thought the change...

Last week, I wrote a post about a new big monetisation banner that popped up when I returned to Zynga’a Cityville. I wondered if it was a last-ditch attempt to get me to spend money (although I...

I logged in to Cityville on Sunday doing some research for a new book idea I’m working on. (More about that soon). I haven’t played for months, and as I cleared withered crops and collected some ancient...

At the Gamification Shoreditch conference last month, Raf Keustermans said that Zynga had a duration of only two months. That means that the average user only stays playing any one of its games for two months before...

Zynga understands how to offer players the choice between different ways of playing the game. In Cityville, it has elevated the presentation of those choices to a fine art - and every choice advances Zynga's business model