The Mini Effect

Share:

Everybody hates upgrading these Limited Time Properties. It's a pain to manually beg and the latest, The Assassin's Academy, is out of control (1). When a feature is beneficial to Zynga, they go a little overboard. In addition to the copious amounts of spam these properties generate, I'm sure all of us are guilty of purchasing a building part here or there to get to the next level.

There are no signs of a slow down. Loot items and server images for the another property with 15 Levels have been located (1).

Another benefit to Zynga is these properties raise the application metrics. It's almost impossible to get enough mafia members to click on your part requests so many have resorted to breaking out old minis or using accounts from friends and family members who don't play Mafia Wars. This in turn has increased the number of Daily Active Users that are reported by Facebook. The Assassin's Academy hit Mafia Wars on January 9th. It's no coincidence that a growth spike emerged on January 10th.
(all application graphic and statistics are from App Data)

Jan 10th: 560,000

Today the DAU metrics are up to 600,000 which is 50,000 more than it was on the day of the Assassin's Academy release.

Jan 12th: 600,000

Jan 9th: 550,000

If this is Zynga's solution to increase their number of players, they may want to reconsider. Facebook is taking preventative measures to eliminate accounts that don't belong to real people. Many find when they log into an old alternate account that they must provide a phone number to verify it's authenticity. You can't use a number that is already in the system. The only workaround for this is to go buy a burner phone or use Google Voice to get a different number. Most just accept the fact that they lost an account and create a new one. 

All Zynga needs to do to stop this insanity is let us help more than 5 people at a time. There are conflicting reports on how often you can help your mafia members but many claim they can every 8 hours. I also noticed that I can help 6 people and not 5 as indicated by the message. If we could all help each other we would be happier and upgrading Limited Time properties would be less stressful. I worry that for every account opened or created to click on property posts and increase Zynga's metrics, a real player decides to quit.

Thanks to Daniel Waldron for providing the Google Voice tip.

Article written by Jennifer Patterson, Creator of the MW Loot Lady Blog, The Mafia Wars Loot Lady Facebook Fan Page and Co-Host of The Informant Podcast. All material is protected by copyright law