Zynga CEO to employees: "I don't f***ing want innovation"

FarmVille creator Zynga is the most popular Facebook game publisher -- that's no debating that. Out of the top 10 most popular games on Facebook, Zynga created seven of them: FarmVille, Zynga Poker, Mafia Wars, FrontierVille, Cafe World, Treasure Isle and PetVille. And while these games are beloved by many, the company behind the game hasn't always garnered a 'friendly' reputation with players or the games industry as a whole.

In a new tell-all article, 'FarmVillains' in San Francisco's SF Weekly, former Zynga employees dish about what they witnessed behind the scenes, which gives credence to the company's less-than-savory reputation. Apparently, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus meant what he said in his now-famous quote, admitting that he "did every horrible thing in the book just to get revenues," and one of those things includes blatantly copying competitor's games.

The SF Weekly article is long and certainly worth reading in its entirety, but here are a few of the more memorable quotes from Zynga's exes:


    "I don't fucking want innovation," the ex-employee recalls Pincus saying. "You're not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers."

    One contractor says he was offered freelance work from Zynga, related to mimicking a competitor's application, with explicit instructions: "Copy that game."

    "I was around meetings where things like that were being discussed, and the ramifications of things like that were being discussed - the fact that they'd probably be sued by the people who designed the game," he says. "And the thought was, 'Well, that's fine, we'll settle.' Our case wasn't really defensible." Psycho Monkey's suit was ultimately settled for an undisclosed amount.

    The former senior employee who was present for Pincus' "No innovation" diatribe described Zynga's business model this way: "Steal somebody else's game, throw millions of dollars at it, and then, if it doesn't have it already, add virtual coins."

To be fair, there are hundreds of successful corporations that were built on a concept that was an iteration of an existing idea. That's what makes the business world go 'round. Facebook itself is an iteration of a dozen social networks before it -- but Mark Zuckerberg's version just happened to resonate with the general population more than, say, Orkut or Friendster did before it.

Some could argue that Zynga simply did the same, but Pincus and his company have also built up a sense of distrust over the past few years, something that needs to be changed if they want to give companies like Electronic Arts and Activision a run for their money, and more importantly, if they want to keep players from looking for new virtual fields to harvest.

Cafe World Holiday Tree: Everything you need to know

If you thought this week's release of the Holiday Dinner catering order would be the end of the Holiday celebration in Cafe World, then Zynga has released a new feature today that is sure to surprise you. The new item is the Holiday Tree, which, like every other buildable in Cafe World, starts out as a simple tree, sans decorations, and must be "constructed" by adding various ingredients to the tree, like lights, bells, and of course, ornaments.

You'll need the help of friends to put this tree together, but it will be worth it, as users that finish building the tree will have a chance at earning free bundles of coins or even free Cafe Cash every single day from December 24 to January 5 just for doing so.

Want to know how you can potentially get your hands on some much-needed Cafe Cash? Meet us behind the break for full details on this new feature.

This is one case where money really will grow on trees, but only if you can help the tree itself grow first. The next time you login to the game, you'll see a pop-up like the one at the top of this post, introducing you to the event, and allowing you to place your entirely plain, generic evergreen tree in your cafe. Of course, a plain evergreen tree simply won't due for a true holiday celebration, so you'll need to finish building and decorating it by collecting four ingredients: Fairy Lights, Chimes, Baubles (ornaments), and Exotic Ornaments.

Since the ultimate goal of this feature is for all users to have the tree completed before December 24, Zynga has mercifully lowered the required number of ingredients from previous building events. This time around, you'll still need to collect 10 of the Fairy Lights, but only five Chimes and Baubles. All three of these are earned by clicking on the "Ask for More" button associated with that item, and then sending out individual gift requests to friends that you think would answer your call for help.

As for the Exotic Ornaments, this actually brings in an entirely different feature for the buildable, as you'll need to click on the "Collect" button in the tree's menu (as seen above), and then follow the menu that appears to head over to Treasure Isle, where you can find the exotic ornament you need for your tree.

By clicking on the "Play Treasure Isle" button, Treasure Isle will load in a new window, where you'll be given the specifics. You'll need to level up to at least level 5, and find any five treasures while playing the game to be "granted a Basket of Ornaments."

Depending on whether or not you've played Treasure Isle in the past, and on what level you are in the game overall, you may be able to finish this task in one sitting, but most players, especially newer players, will have to come back to the game more than once to finish the task. Still, since the other three Holiday Tree ingredients require you to wait for your friends to send you items, the cross-promotion with Treasure Isle at least gives you a way to occupy your time while you wait.

If at any time you'd like to stop waiting for your friends' help, you can purchase your remaining ingredients for 2 Cafe Cash each. You can even skip the Treasure Isle promotion entirely if you'd like to pay 8 Cafe Cash to do so. Additionally, if you really hate building things and want to purchase a completed tree outright, you can do that too, as a finished Holiday Tree is available under the Special Items section of the game's Functional Store (click on the gears, and then the blue gem) for 45 Farm Cash.

Once the tree has been completed, and once December 24 arrives, you'll be awarded a free prize from the tree once per day just for playing the game. Zynga has confirmed that these prizes will either be coins, or even free Cafe Cash, although they didn't announce in what quantities either would be given away (that is, whether you could win up to 1 Cafe Cash per day, 10, 100, or so on).

Either way, if you're done with the Holiday catering orders in Cafe World, this seems like more than a decent replacement for how to spend your time in the game.

Cafe World Prep for the New Year Mission: Everything you need to know

Along with the New Years Party missions in Cafe World (the length of which you guys have made very clear that you don't appreciate; we can't blame you), Zynga has added another themed mission to the game. This newest mission is called "Prep for the New Year," and it comes with a very hefty requirement; so much so in fact that Zynga has even described the mission as being for "expert" players:

    Before you can welcome a new year, you've still got so much to do this year! Only expert chefs can get it all done.

The mission requires you to complete three large tasks, but don't worry - we have everything you need to know to make this mission as painless, and quick, as humanly possible. Meet us behind the break for all of the details about this new mission. The three tasks for this mission are as follows:

Earn 90,000 coins
Spice 30 Neighbor Stoves
Prepare 200 Stuffed Mushrooms

Before you start panicking over the third stipulation - the preparation of 200 Stuffed Mushrooms, rest assured that we've figured out a quick and easy way to complete this step with ease, even if it will cost quite a bit of money to do.

While the other steps are simple enough (simply serve enough dishes to earn 90,000 coins, and visit neighbors 30 times to spice dishes - if you don't have enough neighbors, visit the same neighbors over multiple days), the Stuffed Mushrooms portion takes a bit of an explanation.

While you are more than welcome to attempt to actually prepare, cook, and serve 200 Stuffed Mushrooms (that's 200 individual preparations of the entire Stuffed Mushrooms dish - not 200 servings), we doubt that many users have enough stoves, time, or even patience to wait around for them to cook. Stuffed mushrooms take an entire day to cook, and even if we said that the average user has 20 stoves on hand (lower level players would of course have much fewer), that would still take a player 10 days to finish the quest. 10 days of doing nothing by cooking Stuffed Mushrooms over and over again. That doesn't sound like the most enjoyable gameplay experience to us, but luckily, if you have 360,000 coins that you are willing to spend without receiving any return, you can take advantage of the wording provided by this quest.

Since it only says to "Prepare" the Stuffed Mushrooms dish, you can simply add the dish to a stove, toss it, and cook it again. I personally used this technique, so I can confirm that it works. Ultimately, whether you do cook each dish to completion, or just toss it, you'll be spending the 360,000 coins either way; it's whether or not you want to receive any profit in return that will be the deciding factor here.

Whatever the case may be, once you complete this mission, you'll receive 5,000 coins, and 5,000 Cafe Points. Needless to say, the rewards here (especially the Cafe Points), make this one worth completing. And with our helpful tips on how to work the system, you too should be able to complete this mission with ease, before it expires from the game.

Cafe World New Years Party Catering Order: Everything you need to know

As we told you yesterday, Zynga has been hard at work in Cafe World, creating a New Year's event that has made many users extremely upset by the length and the complexity of the tasks therein. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, then, but your to-do list is about to get just a bit longer, as a second New Year's themed catering order has been released in the game.

Unfortunately, if you're hoping to complete all of the New Years Party Goals, you must complete this catering order, as it is a requirement for Part VIII of the mission set (as of this writing). Perhaps with enough encouragement from fans, Zynga will change the Catering Order to be more voluntary, but as it stands, if you want to know everything you'll need to finish this new job, meet us behind the break.

As with most other Catering Orders, you'll have just three days to earn a three-star rating, but as this is one of the more complex orders we've come across, we severely doubt that three days will be enough for most users. First and foremost, you'll need to cook four, count them, four dishes to complete this job. What's more - each and every one of these recipes is a locked New Years recipe, which are only unlocked by completing New Years goals. That being the case, while it might be tempting to start this mission right now, in order to get it out of the way, unless you've already unlocked all four dishes, we'd advise on waiting. After all, why waste your time collecting collectible items (there are two in this catering order), when you'll just end up getting a one-star rating anyway?

That humble suggestion aside, you'll need to cook Mini Crab Cakes 138 times (a 9 hour dish), Beef Skewers 138 times (a 12 hour dish), Salmon Rillettes 75 times (a 10 hour dish), and Bread Pudding 75 times (an 8 hour dish). You can either cook these dishes as normal, or you can spend anywhere from 16-24 Cafe Cash to unlock each dish's requirements.

In addition, you'll need to collect 10 Party Hates, and 10 Bottles of Champagne with the help of friends. You'll do this by clicking on the "Ask" button next to either item, which takes you to a reverse of the game's free gifts page, where you can send an individual request to the Cafe World neighbors that you think would be most likely to send you one. You can also unlock these items with Cafe Cash - each Party Hat costs 3 Cafe Cash, while each Bottle of Champagne costs 4 Cafe Cash.

If you can complete this order in three days, you'll receive the three star rating, 9 Catering Points, 6,300 Cafe Points, 141,750 coins and a 2011 Monument. Finishing after three days have elapsed, but before five days have passed earned you two-stars, 6 Catering Points, 4,500 Cafe Points, and 101,250 coins. Finally, if you finish the mission at anytime after five days have passed, you'll receive a single star, 3 Catering Points, 2,700 Cafe Points, and 60,750 coins.

You'll be able to bring 10 of your friends in on the mission with you, for a total of an 11 member catering crew. Whether that will be enough to finish this difficult order on time, however, will remain to be seen. Good luck to all those who attempt it (I'm personally holding out for a while).

Cafe World High Tea Table: Everything you need to know

As we told you earlier today, the High Tea Table in Cafe World is but a small part in a much larger event in the game celebrating the two-year anniversary. Within this celebration are sections split into different countries, with the first destination being Great Britain. As part of the goal series for this section - Winston's Royals - you'll need to build the High Tea Table, so we're here to help you figure out how to do just that.

The High Tea Table's base can be added to your cafe for free by looking under the Specials tab of the Functional menu. Once placed, you'll have the expected task of gathering multiple building ingredients with your friends' help. You'll need eight Fancy Tea Pots, 10 Delicate Teacups, six Silver Platters and 6 sets of Cream and Sugar dishes. Only the Fancy Tea Pot is earned through a general news post - you'll need to gather the other three items either using Cafe Cash or by sending out individual requests to your friends for help.

Once completed, this table has more of a function that simply looking pretty, as it gives you extra mastery points when serving "British" dishes. Remember, you can sort your Cookbook by nationality, so if you're looking to quickly master some dishes, go for these British offerings as you'll earn +1 point of extra mastery each time you serve a British dish with this table out and active in your cafe.

What do you think of the High Tea Table? Are you looking forward to serving high tea to the "Royals" in your cafe, or are you tired of endless building projects?

Cafe World Farmers Insurance promotion comes with Professor Burke Statue

If anything, the folks at Zynga definitely know how to setup a good cross-promotion. After Capital One recently set up shop in a slew of Zynga's games (and practically took over FarmVille), we now see a new promotion launching in Cafe World with another company: Farmers Insurance (remember, we were told that Farmers would be making an appearance in the game back in June). If you watch a lot of TV, you might recognize this promotion's mascot of sorts - Professor Burke - from recent Farmers Insurance commercials.

Now, Professor Burke has come to your cafe as a character and as a statue, plated in gold. This "Professor Burke Statue" has a limited time of effectiveness, but will "insure" your cafe, granting you spoil protection on all of the dishes you cook from now until October 2. Luckily, the statue is free, and it doesn't require any "building" to gain its effect. You can either simply place the statue from the in-game pop-up that appears, or you can head into the game's build menu manually to drag your free statue out and into your cafe.

If there's one thing to remember about this, it isn't that the statue itself comes with a time limit that can be turned on and off depending on when you place it in your cafe; rather, it's a case where you'll want to place it in your cafe as soon as possible as the overall countdown timer ticks down until October 2. If the Farmers Insurance promotion grows in Cafe World, we'll make sure to let you know.

Would you have liked the Professor Burke Statue to have another effect, rather than wither protection? Or, will you take advantage of this opportunity to cook some quickly cooking dishes while you're busy doing other things since they won't spoil? Sound off in the comments.

Cafe World Manny's Mobile Meal Catering Order: Everything you need to know

Last week, we gave you a look at the second portion of the Cafe World two-year anniversary event, which takes us to the Philippines to help Manny on a Journey. While that may have been an already complex series of goals (and even a building project), Manny's story becomes even more in-depth today, as the accompanying catering order has finally launched. This order asks you to cook up a storm for a Filipino feast, and comes with the usual free recipe for completing this order with a three star rating.

Unfortunately, this is another order that will likely be impossible for some chefs to complete, unless they've already completed Manny's goals enough times to unlock all of the new Filipino recipes launched in this particular event. To be specific, you'll need to serve Lechon 475 times, Sisig 45 times and Filipino Paella 140 times. I suppose you could get lucky and have some really, really helpful friends do the cooking in these tasks for you (while you showered them with thanks, of course), or you could even pay your way through the goals with Cafe Cash to unlock the dishes more quickly that way. Either way, you're looking at some lengthy gameplay before you can even be eligible for completing this catering order on your own.

While you're cooking (or waiting on your friends to cook), you can ask your friends for the two collectible items in this order: 12 Monster Skewers and 16 Banana Leaves. Both of these are earned by sending out individual requests to friends, so earning all 28 may take you a few days, depending on the number of neighbors you have available to ask for help.

If you can complete this entire order within the first three days, you'll earn the three-star rating, 12 Catering Points, 3,200 Cafe Points, 70,000 coins and the Cassava Cake recipe. In addition, since this order is technically part of the two-year anniversary event, finishing with the three star rating also gives you a bonus of 10,000 Travel Passes. If three days proves to be too short, but you can finish within five days, you'll receive two stars, 8 Catering Points, 2,300 Cafe Points and 50,000 coins. Finally, if you finish at any point after the first five days have passed, you'll receive just a single star, 4 Catering Points, 1,400 Cafe Points and 30,000 coins. Again, you must finish with the three star rating to unlock the new recipe and the extra Travel Passes, so feel free to "cancel" your order if you run out of time and start over for another try.

What do you think of this newest catering order? How many of these three required dishes have you already unlocked in your cafe? Let us know in the comments.