Rico Says “There are some really smart ideas here. What are your thoughts on the ideas presented? Can Zynga really continue their mobile domination? Would these ideas get you to continue to engage?”

Zynga’s With Friends apps are all the rage right now. I’d bet that Chess With Friends is the market-leading Mobile /Social Chess App, as are Words with Friends and Hanging with Friends (Scrabble and Hangman respectively). Zynga needs to improve their products to keep their stranglehold on the market and increase their revenue stream, otherwise app competitors like Chess.com and Scrabble will eat into their market share. As we’ve learned all too often on the Internet, a lack of innovation becomes an advantage for competitors.

Here are several ideas to keep Zynga on top as well as boost the bottom line:

• There are 5,799 reviews of Chess with Friends (for pay). Yet there are 72,771 reviews for Chess with Friends (Free). That’s over 12 times more reviews. And I’d bet a higher percentage of App owners review apps they’ve paid for than ones they got for free. Even more interesting, the For Pay edition has a full star higher rating.
• It’s time Chess with Friends adds more than just removal of ads for our $2. 
  I don’t think users mind the ads so it’s not worth $2 to remove them. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of users would put up with paying $2 and still seeing ads if we got some sweet features that don’t exist in the free version! 
  
  Zynga needs to start thinking freemium and keep the ads in the $2 version; after all it’s only $2. The ad revenue’s gotta bring in more than that per person over an app’s lifetime anyway. People pay for cable yet still put up with ads because the product is good. 
• Feature for all versions: Add the ability to see whether your friend is viewing the app or not back into the game. Knowing that a friend is close to making a move makes you want to stay in the app longer. Think of an IM; the window displays, “Your friend is typing” to keep the user’s attention. Add this to With Friends and more ad impressions are displayed since the user will want to stay in the app longer. 
• Feature worth paying for: Add the ability to keep your statistics. Seriously, this is a no-brainer. Use GameCenter or OpenFeint or something so you can get stats about your gaming skills. Nobody wants to talk trash if they don’t have numbers to back it up. For example:—head to head W-L—total games W-L—Time spent in the app—Average reaction time between moves—Fastest/Slowest win/loss—badges for achievements—high scores (Not in Chess)—overall rankIt should be possible to publish/share these statistics to Facebook/Twitter if the user is interested in doing so. It’s called bragging rights!
• Feature for all versions: Speaking of sharing, I should be able to share wins, losses, screenshots and important moves right to Facebook and Twitter. It should auto-tag both friends playing. This way, crowd-sourcing for suggestions only takes place if both players know about it. Of course, this auto-tag setting can be turned off. 
• Feature worth paying for: Add the ability to put photos in the chat stream. How cool would that be? You should be able to take photos, add them from your library, and even save your friends’ photos to your camera roll. 
• Feature for all versions: Why can’t I copy a chat to the clipboard. I’d imagine adding that feature would be really easy. This one is so basic it should be in the Free version too. 
• Feature worth paying for: Consider adding profile pictures from Facebook or uploaded specifically to the game. Hanging with Friends Free allows you to choose a character, let’s expand on that in either both versions, or just the Premium one. 
• Feature worth paying for: How about a way to play the computer? Zynga’s competitors are doing it. This should be in both versions since it will create more impressions. 
• Bug that needs to be fixed: Text that is typed in the chat box but not sent should remain there (unsent) even after flipping back to the game. This is a bug. 
• Feature for all versions: Timers between moves should be available and have customizable times on a game-by-game basis. 

In the end, Zynga needs to stop thinking like an app company (let’s get as many apps out there and make money with ad revenue) and start thinking like a gaming company (make people want to pay for our product, and keep some ads in there anyway). They could even make the game free all the time, and just charge 50 cents for each of the Premium features above.

Another thought - do some qualitative testing. If people are pissed off they’re paying for an app but still seeing ads, try to make them less obtrusive. Loading screens. During transitions, but without taking up the full screen, so it seems that the game is still progressing.  

Anyhow, if Zynga follows these ideas, their continued domination of mobile gaming will continue. If not, there’s always going to be a new kid on the block looking to take them down! 

What do you think?