But Zynga doesn't make games. They make shitty frontends on a spreadsheet.

As to their theft of products, that's not hearsay. That's an ongoing, provable patterns of behavior:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/01/25/everything...

I love games and don't think they are frivolous for a moment. I'm not sure what that has to do with a discussion of Zynga, though.

There's usually no skill, no challenge, no fun, just a bald-faced hook into the effort/reward system in the mind.

The closest thing Zynga has to real games are Bingo, Poker, and Words With Friends. I'm not even going to count that last one because they bought it from someone else.

(Therefore, "increment a number" games could theoretically be fun. Though I personally find them more boring than watching paint dry. At least the paint eventually dries and you can move on to something else.)

No True Scotsman fallacy. Just because you don't think they're games doesn't make it fact. They make games, and people criticize them for it. The only thing your post did was help better prove OP's point.

First, Zynga is not criticized for making games, they're criticized for making Skinner boxes and passing them off as games. Quality, in other words.

Second, just because you think they make games doesn't make it fact.

Definition of a game per Google:

A form of play or sport, esp. a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck.

Zynga's "games" (with very few exceptions) lack any form of skill, strength, or luck. Push button, receive reward, pay us cash or spam your friends and you can push the button more often.

That is literally all there is to most Zynga games. I'm not even engaging in hyperbole here! Compare with even the most grindtastic MMO's out there, even the most rehashed FPS or football franchise you can think of, and there's still a skill component that these wannabes can't grok.

Resorting to a dictionary definition to argue a point is nearly always a sign you've got a weak argument. But in this case, I want to point out the "esp." just after the first comma in the definition you cite.

It means especially. In context, that means that games need not adhere to the conditions specified in the subordinate clause.

Also, I swear Wittgenstein had something to say on this topic.

Or a sign that your opponent is redefining words to fit their argument instead of using the commonly accepted one. Are you telling me it's unfair to refer to an authoritative source as to the meaning of a word?

In any case, there has to be some kind of definition or else the word becomes meaningless. By defining Farmville as a "game", you could just as easily define twiddling numbers on an Excel sheet as a "game". Where do you stop? Is Farmville a game just because it has a pretty skin?

Unfair, no. A sign that the argument is weak, yes. Particularly in this case.

Also, use is meaning. Dictionaries are authoritative only in the sense that they capture current use at the time of publication. Even in that case, they're often lacking in some word senses and/or connotation because they don't exist in the writer's dialect.

>By defining Farmville as a "game", you could just as easily define twiddling numbers on an Excel sheet as a "game".

Are you twiddling the numbers as a form of play? Then yes, that'd be a game according to the definition given above. Games don't need to be challenging, or even all that entertaining.

It is, at least for me, more just transparent snobbery than the No True Scotsman fallacy. The same way some video game journalists don't like to cover Minecraft, as it's "not a real video game".

In my mind, Zynga "games" are to games what crack dealers are to entrepreneurs. It may be a subset, but it's a subset about which I believe quite firmly that those that participate should be shunned. They are an unethical company that produce products that I can describe only as predatory.

(And, yes, World of Warcraft falls in the same bucket.)

^I know that people believing something doesn't define facts - in this case I'm wondering if the fallacy would still apply.

The fallacy is when you keep changing the definition to fit the data.

That's not why people criticize Zynga, and I think you probably know that.

I'm happy to see them fail because I firmly believe they violate the tenet that entities should create more value than they capture.

By "basic ideas" I assume you mean "ideas that are better and more useful, and therefore more widely ripped off."

Your argument reminds me of when people say such-and-such band is so original -- yet it's another four guys playing guitar, bass, drums and vocals.

BTW did you hear about the dot-commies?

They thought they had a right to everyone else's money.

This is an absurd justification for the kind of outright theft Zynga has built an entire public corporation on.