This is sure to be down voted but here I go anyway...
Doesn't this just indicate that having distribution is the most important element of the gaming market? It isn't enough to have a great game or design if you can't win at distribution.
Yet, that's how it is. Adjusting and knowing that is empowering... "build a better mousetrip" isn't enough by itself; you also need to understand and connect with people who would benefit from the mousetrap, get the word out about the mousetrap to those people, and then find a sales/delivery mechanism so those people can buy the mousetrap and have a mouse-free life.
- it'll get a crap rating and 10s of thousands of plays
- it'll get a great rating and hundreds of thousands or even millions of plays
Ultimately they succeed or not based on their own merit, having a ton of traffic to throw at them just helps it happen faster.
As far as succeeding without a huge platform behind you... that's kind of a different argument, it happens a lot to a limited extent, a little to a significant extent, but most of the time games just fail. Same as startups.
Distribution works the same way. It's where the money is.
This doesn't just indicate that great game design takes a back seat to distribution, it promotes the idea that the fine line between plagiarism and inspiration doesn't exist and that they're one and the same. Businesses that operate like Zynga aren't new but what's new, at least to me, is seeing such a business, despite the criticism it gets, become such a media darling. They had Pinkus on the Today show or some other morning show the other day making him look like he's some genius mythical Zuckerberg type. Businesses with the rip off model are often successful as there's a sucker born every minute but I've never seen one get praise like Zynga as if they're doing something that's one iota innovative.
"The guys who they're ripping off are the ones deserving of all the money Zynga is making off them."
Zynga outsourced being innovative to the market and focused their resources on building distribution. You have to work hard to build distribution and it is an important part of a business strategy. It is not enough to just design a great game and expect it to be a huge business success. It might be a huge creative success but that is different from being a business success.
Lets use Mcdonald's as an example (I am not a fan of their food but I think they illustrate a business that is built on distribution not quality product). People were making hamburgers before Mcdonalds, no innovation in the product. The value of the Mcdonalds business is in the vast network of restaurants that they built to deliver their product. Does the person who made the first hamburger deserve all the money that Mcdonalds is making? I would say no.
I think a lot of people on HN ignore the importance of the simple fact that distribution is a competitive advantage in business and it is something you have to work hard for. I think Zynga is taking advantage of a resource they worked hard to build, their distribution.
Hence, intellectual property protection (or whatever legal term is right here).
If the current framework can't penalize Zynga for ripping off someone else's hard work, I would say the system is broken for this use case at minimum.
There's a line between inspiration and stealing, and I would say Zynga isn't on the right side of such a line in this case.
Apple, when launched the iPod (could take many Apple examples but this is from the letter) didn't make a more-or-less copy of an existing successful product. Took inspiration from the idea of portable digital music and took it to the next level. Significantly better product.
Google didn't copy Yahoo!, seriously now! They took the idea of searching for pages and took it to the next level. Significantly better product.
To say they copied is like saying anyone who invents a new dish has copied the very first cooked meal in history. Seriously? People have just gotten amazing at gaming the system than playing the game.
No one gets to have a monopoly on an idea (i m also against patents). Distribution (or more correctly, marketing and operations) is one of the more difficult, non-game-design related problems a gaming company faces, and all else equals, the company that profits is the one that can scale.
I feel like you are just critizing zynga simply because they got successful based on game ideas that others have failed to profit from. I don't see that as a problem - this is what nature intends, and the fittest survive. Those who makes the money deserves it.