Is Mafia Wars Going The Way Of The Dinosaur?

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Today Al Catraz, Super Moderator on the Mafia Wars forums revealed that sometime tonight that the 3XP reward for assisting in Wars will be removed and in fact the entire War system is going to be rethought.

The reasoning behind this move by Zynga is that some players are exploiting the system to gain more experience than they are rightfully entitled to. Once again the crackdown on a few bad apples punishes everyone that plays the game.

While I do appreciate what Zynga has provided in the way of games on social networks I must ask them…what are you thinking?” Right now the feeling in the Zynga gaming network of players and those who play Mafia Wars in particular is that the majority is being punished for the actions of the few.

Lately it seems that Zynga is shooting itself in the foot in Mafia Wars by releasing so called “Limited Edition” items that require the player to spend Reward Points to get and then a few weeks later offering the same item as a free gift in the game. Here is a little secret for the gang at Zynga, you cannot call items limited edition and elude to the fact that the only way to get the item is to spend points and then give it away a few days or weeks later. The player base is not made up of a bunch of blithering idiots who are blind in one eye and cannot see out of the other.

The idea of limited edition items is to give those who spend the money to purchase reward points an advantage over those who do not. This idea stimulates players to purchase points to get these items and thus providing Zynga the revenue that it is in business for anyway. If I could ask the financial department at Zynga one question I would ask if they have so much money that they no longer need anymore?

While it may sound elitist to say that limited edition reward point only items are there to let allow those to buy to have access to better equipment than those who do not you must realize that the financial model that Zynga uses was designed to do exactly that. Think about it, you keep getting your butt kicked by players who have RP only items and eventually you will consider purchasing them yourself. That’s how this monetization system is supposed to work.

Ok I am sorry that today’s post turned into a bit of a rant but I see Mafia Wars becoming just another game if the developers continue down the path that they are following.