A Bad Game Card Redemption Update

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UPDATE: This has been resolved and reverted back to the way it worked before. Redemption bonuses now appear redemption and a refresh.

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Last month the way Game Cards were handled by Facebook was updated [1]. It was a win/win situation for the player because you would get a 63% redemption bonus plus get punches on your Mafia Wars Rewards Card. It almost seemed too good to be true and once again there was a change. It’s not a good change because A: It creates false advertising on Zynga’s end and B: Most players don’t know how to get the reward points and will assume the Game Card didn’t work. Both of these are bad for Zynga and I’m pretty sure Facebook is the culprit. Now when you redeem a Zynga Game Card, you get Facebook Credits instead of reward points. There are no redemption bonuses even thought they are advertised as such on the redemption page. In the example below, I redeemed a $50 Game Card and didn’t get any reward points for it so I assumed I did something wrong. When I repeated the process, I was told the PIN code was already used. I was beside myself with frustration because it’s always something when redeeming Game Cards! Below is a guide for what to do if this happens to you and it basically takes away any advantage to using Game Cards.


I had purchased and redeemed 2 $50 Game Cards and my reward point balance didn’t move. I got the codes and the money was taken out of my account so things did go smooth on that front. After scratching my head for a few minutes, I checked the ‘payments’ setting on my Facebook account and sure enough there was my $100.00! This setting is not obvious and one who doesn’t know about it wouldn’t even think to look there. To find it you need to click on the account dropdown menu arrow, click settings and then click on the ‘Payments’ link.

Once there you will see an account balance in the currency of your choice (default is US Dollars). Your balance is the equivalent of Facebook Credits and these can be used to buy many thing on Facebook. The face value of my 2 Game Card purchases is the balance so there were no redemption bonuses to speak of.

To convert this money into reward points, you then need to go to the Marketplace and make a purchase making the whole point of a Game Card moot. If I had known this was the pathway I needed to follow, I would have just purchased them directly from the Marketplace! This update directly impacts how many reward points you get. In the past 1 $50 Game Card would get you 582 reward points and now it’s the equivalent to 500. I had anticipated 1,164 reward points for the $100 purchase and instead I got 1,000. I also missed out on 30 Ruthless Boosts but that’s not really something to be upset about. If this is the way it’s going to be then Zynga needs to stop advertising redemption bonuses and they need to make it clear how to get the reward points once the Game Cards are redeemed. Many player think the code didn’t work and most likely Zynga has serviced many inquiries and credited players with reward points over this issue.