Fly Or Die: Draw Something ~ Tech Trix Zone

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Fly Or Die: Draw Something

9:38 PM

Jordan Crook studied English Literature at New York University before entering the tech space. Prior to joining TechCrunch, Crook dabbled in mobile marketing and mobile apps as well as doing device reviews for MobileMarketer and MobileBurn. Crook is fascinated with alternative energy production and greentech. She is now a writer for CrunchGear. ? Learn More

Draw Something has been a hot topic of late. About a month ago, OMGPOP, the company behind the hit game, was acquired by Zynga as the web gaming company attempts the migration over to mobile. The $180 million deal took Zynga’s daily user traffic up 25 percent, and even though Draw Something has been bleeding users, the motivation behind the acquisition circles back to Zynga’s transition to mobile. They bought talent, instead of trying to mimic it.

That, dear readers, is a Fly. But what about the game itself?

John and I sat down in the studio to discuss the merits of the game, if you can even call it a game. What is there to win? Sure, you and your friend could get to the 100-turn mark, and you may get enough currency to buy some colors or a bomb or two, but do you want to?

There’s no reward in Draw Something. As Josh Constine pointed out, people like to draw and people like to guess. That is the driver of success for games like Pictionary. But people who play games like to compete, as well, which is where Draw Something loses big time.

Not only am I not rewarded for what can end up being hours of game-play, but I find that most of my friends cheat. Maybe I have an abnormally unethical group of friends, but the temptation is there to simply write out words you can’t properly draw and cash in on all three coins, especially when there is no winner or loser.

As I said during Fly or Die, the game feels empty, which is why both John and I give it a die. Just wait and see — Zynga will use the OMGPOP talent to push out addictive game after addictive game, but Draw Something will be long forgotten.

OMGPOP (formerly known as iminlikewithyou) developer and publisher of multiplayer, social and mobile games. The Company started in 2006 as iminlikewithyou, a place for people to play games to meet each other and in 2009 changed its name to the shorter OMGPOP where people meet each other to play games. It launched OMGPOP.com at that time. The company has generated about 1 Billion game plays to date. It has 20+ casual multiplayer flash games on OMGPOP.com. It released 5 Facebook games to...

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Zynga was founded in July 2007 by Mark Pincus and is named for his late American Bulldog, Zinga. Loyal and spirited, Zinga’s name is a nod to a legendary African warrior queen. The early supporting founding team included Eric Schiermeyer, Michael Luxton, Justin Waldron, Kyle Stewart, Scott Dale, John Doerr, Steve Schoettler, Kevin Hagan, and Andrew Trader. Zynga’s mission is connecting the world through games. Everyday millions of people interact with their friends and express their unique personalities through our...