Zynga, by contrast, can tweak its games, analyze the results, and make more changes. That’s because their games are sold by retailers, who keep the customer information and don’t share anything meaningful with the game publishers. Traditional game makers have no such relationship with their users. That feedback is a source of inspiration for future feature upgrades. He said that Zynga’s support people stay engaged with users, who offer real-time feedback. Sehgal told the team that 20 percent of the effort was building the game and 80 percent is operating the game as an ongoing service. To keep the game going, Zynga is releasing new features and assets for the game several times a week. That’s the advantage that Facebook app makers have over those who focus on other platforms such as the iPhone. They love to share what they’re doing with others and they don’t mind spending money on their games. The level of promotion was no more or less than usual, he added.Ĭertainly, Facebook users are a sharing bunch. That’s an element of its advantage, but the huge growth wasn’t due only to the promotion, Sehgal said. Zynga cross-promoted the game to its other game users. Now, on any given day, 6.5 million users are playing it. But you can also use real money to buy Cafe coins that you can use to decorate your restaurant with a French or Indian motif. You can spend those coins on dishes that you buy from others. You can earn virtual currency known as coins by running a successful cafe. Zynga also designed a way to make money in the game. Another part of the success, which Zynga doesn’t talk about, is how it can rapidly add server capacity to handle a sudden rush of signups for its games. And they designed “engagement” into the game, meaning that they figured out you had to return to the game every day so that you could tend to your cooking dish. There are ways to get your friends to tap their friends. This is another trick from the Zynga playbook ( which is apparently quite a valuable document Zynga is suing Playdom for hiring three former Zynga employees who allegedly brought a “Zynga playbook” with them to Playdom). The more you play, the more dishes you can unlock and then cook.īeyond making the game, the team designed “virality” into the game. In the game, players climb a ladder of achievements, always striving to get from one level to the next. And while this team as a whole had not worked on a game together before, they did have the benefit of learning from the wisdom of games such as Mafia Wars, poker, and FarmVille. They focused on doing quality 3-D graphics, which is something that a lot of Facebook games are missing.
So Cafe World had more time to cook than usual.įrom the start, the team created playable prototypes so that they could constantly judge whether their ideas were working out. Zynga typically spends three to six months on its games. But this kind of game resembles a mobile game, where the timeline is much shorter. Normally, console games take a couple of years and $10 million to develop. The Clubhouse Studio team polished the game for five months. These games are only related on the surface as food-related games.” It’s about cooking and running a restaurant, while Restaurant City is built around a trading mechanic. I would compare it to Diner Dash or Cooking Mama. “A clone of Restaurant City?” said Sehgal. You return to the game when the cooking is done and serve it to the customers. You select a dish, buy the ingredients for it, and then cook it over a period of time. Sehgal describes his title as an “ultimate cooking and restaurant empire building game.” The player actively participates in cooking dishes for the restaurant and does so in a social way. From one view, it certainly looks like Zynga just cloned the Playfish game.īut Sehgal says that the game really has a different game mechanic at its core. Rival social game maker Playfish had pioneered the food genre on Facebook with a game called Restaurant City. Of course, the team didn’t have to look far for inspiration. Sehgal himself considered himself to be a “web guy, not a game guy.”
The team included 25 producers, product managers, game designers, artists and programmers - all from a variety of backgrounds, not just video games.
#CAFE WORLD GAME ON FACEBOOK HOW TO#
Sehgal led a team that conceptualized how to go after the category of food/restaurant-themed game. Now it has more than 500, counting about 100 contractors. Back then, the company had less than 200 employees. Sehgal, a former casual games creator at MTV Networks, joined San Francisco-based Zynga in April. Three top investment pros open up about what it takes to get your video game funded.