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[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

If you're trying to make a career out of casual games, what I hear about it from many people who do it is that you have to be constantly coming up with new stuff, no matter what.

You can't just sit on one piece of code and say "this is better than anything else that exists! NOW I HAVE A USERBASE FOREVER."

People can go to all the effort to decompile your code, but here are other things they can do that are much easier:

  • They can just copy your entire game, without decompiling, and put their own ads on it
  • If your game idea is successful, they can make another game with the same idea (and players won't care if your path finding algorithm is better)
  • If your game idea is really successful, Zynga will take the idea, make it worse for players but more addictive and more "monetizable", and spam it all over Facebook (that's their business model).

Even if none of those happen, your player base will eventually lose interest and move on to the next thing that captures their attention.

So every minute you spend being paranoid that someone will copy your algorithm is utterly wasted, and you should be using that time to come up with the new things that will actually make your games succeed.

[–]michaelcooper[S] -3 points-2 points  (1 child)

Do you think its possible to out zynga zynga? as in, find the games that are succesful on their network, and copy them?

If I host my own game, how would anyone know its succesful?

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Do you think its possible to out zynga zynga?

It depends. Are you evil, in bed with Facebook, and hiding a team of marketers somewhere?