When debuted on Facebook on Sept. 30, it lit up the social network immediately. The title, a simple simulation where you make food and run a restaurant, took off faster than any other social game in history.In its first seven days, it got more than eight million users. That’s a faster growth rate than Zynga saw for its game, which now has more than 56 million monthly active users. Now Cafe World has topped 15 million users (source: ) and it has helped boost Zynga’s presence on Facebook to more than 148 million monthly active users. It’s clear that Zynga is now reaching a mass market through Facebook. Zynga has the first mover advantage, and its reach is going to be very hard for its rivals to duplicate.
Jul 23, 2014 Here's some gameplay from Zynga's Cafe World on Facebook. This was recorded on May 29, 2014. The game closed on July 22, 2014.
These numbers are unheard of and they raise a lot of questions. While other game makers toil for naught, Zynga makes it look so easy. How does Zynga do it?
Will it last? Is the game really that good, or is it spreading rapidly because Zynga can cross promote it to so many of its other game users?We put those questions to Roy Sehgal (right), general manager of Clubhouse Studio, the new Zynga game design studio that built Cafe World in just five months. Sehgal didn’t reveal the secret sauce, or playbook, behind the game. But his answers are quite relevant to anyone trying to knock Zynga off its perch as the top company in social games.Sehgal, a former casual games creator at MTV Networks, joined San Francisco-based Zynga in April. Back then, the company had less than 200 employees. Now it has more than 500, counting about 100 contractors. Sehgal led a team that conceptualized how to go after the category of food/restaurant-themed game.
The team included 25 producers, product managers, game designers, artists and programmers — all from a variety of backgrounds, not just video games. Sehgal himself considered himself to be a “web guy, not a game guy.”Of course, the team didn’t have to look far for inspiration. Rival social game maker had pioneered the food genre on Facebook with a game called Restaurant City. From one view, it certainly looks like Zynga just cloned the Playfish game.But Sehgal says that the game really has a different game mechanic at its core. Sehgal describes his title as an “ultimate cooking and restaurant empire building game.” The player actively participates in cooking dishes for the restaurant and does so in a social way. You select a dish, buy the ingredients for it, and then cook it over a period of time. You return to the game when the cooking is done and serve it to the customers.
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It just takes minutes a day.“A clone of Restaurant City?” said Sehgal. I would compare it to Diner Dash or Cooking Mama. It’s about cooking and running a restaurant, while Restaurant City is built around a trading mechanic. These games are only related on the surface as food-related games.”The Clubhouse Studio team polished the game for five months. Normally, console games take a couple of years and $10 million to develop.
But this kind of game resembles a mobile game, where the timeline is much shorter. Zynga typically spends three to six months on its games. So Cafe World had more time to cook than usual.From the start, the team created playable prototypes so that they could constantly judge whether their ideas were working out. They focused on doing quality 3-D graphics, which is something that a lot of Facebook games are missing. And while this team as a whole had not worked on a game together before, they did have the benefit of learning from the wisdom of games such as Mafia Wars, poker, and FarmVille. In the game, players climb a ladder of achievements, always striving to get from one level to the next.
The more you play, the more dishes you can unlock and then cook.Beyond making the game, the team designed “virality” into the game. This is another trick from the Zynga playbook.
There are ways to get your friends to tap their friends. And they designed “engagement” into the game, meaning that they figured out you had to return to the game every day so that you could tend to your cooking dish. Another part of the success, which Zynga doesn’t talk about, is how it can rapidly add server capacity to handle a sudden rush of signups for its games.Zynga also designed a way to make money in the game.
You can earn virtual currency known as coins by running a successful cafe. You can spend those coins on dishes that you buy from others. But you can also use real money to buy Cafe coins that you can use to decorate your restaurant with a French or Indian motif.The game was released on Sept. 30 among Zynga’s employees. It went viral like a rocket ship.
Now, on any given day, 6.5 million users are playing it. Zynga cross-promoted the game to its other game users. That’s an element of its advantage, but the huge growth wasn’t due only to the promotion, Sehgal said. The level of promotion was no more or less than usual, he added.Certainly, Facebook users are a sharing bunch.
They love to share what they’re doing with others and they don’t mind spending money on their games. That’s the advantage that Facebook app makers have over those who focus on other platforms such as the iPhone.To keep the game going, Zynga is releasing new features and assets for the game several times a week. Sehgal told the team that 20 percent of the effort was building the game and 80 percent is operating the game as an ongoing service. He said that Zynga’s support people stay engaged with users, who offer real-time feedback.
That feedback is a source of inspiration for future feature upgrades.Traditional game makers have no such relationship with their users. That’s because their games are sold by retailers, who keep the customer information and don’t share anything meaningful with the game publishers.
Zynga, by contrast, can tweak its games, analyze the results, and make more changes.Is this a fad? Sehgal lived through the Internet bubble and its crash in the 1999-2001 time frame.
He thinks that the over-hyped dotcom market, as well as the mobile gaming hype a few years ago, is far different from social games today. This time, it’s clear that users are engaged.The lifespan of Zynga games — Mafia Wars, FarmVille, and poker — suggest that these games are more like massively multiplayer online games, which develop loyal fan bases who play the games for a long time as a way to socialize with their friends. Zynga’s games don’t have endings — they’re made to be played for as long as people stay interested.Zynga isn’t saying much about the exact profile of its users. But since Facebook has more than 300 million members worldwide, it’s clear that the users are mass market gamers, not hardcore console gamers. The success with these mass market gamers is encouraging because it shows that games are becoming an essential part of mainstream life.“It’s part of a daily habit,” Sehgal said.
“We know that people are playing these games every day. And a lot of us find that we can play these games with our parents.”Ultimately, Sehgal credits the team’s focus on quality for Cafe World’s success. To get more than 15 million users, a game really has to be fun. Now the pressure is on the other teams at Zynga to keep the hot streak going. “We’ve just reset our expectations for a successful game,” Sehgal said.
Cafe World is the latest and greatest Facebook game from the creators at Zynga. If you haven’t heard of Zynga, they’re the ones responsible for Farmville, Mafia Wars, and over a dozen other games that have millions of users and can be found on Facebook and other social sites.
Cafe World allows you to run a kitchen, cooking and serving food to others while leveling up and becoming the Iron Chef of your neighborhood. It’s pretty fun, but like most of these games, over time certain tasks can become pretty repetitive.
We’ve given you tips and cheats for Mafia Wars Mafia Wars On Facebook - Tips & Cheats Read More and 7 tricks to master Farmville 7 Tips and Tricks To Be A Master At Farmville On Facebook Read More in the recent past. Well I’ve scoured the web once again in search of tips, tricks, hacks, and cheats for Cafe World. Here are the Cafe World cheats I’ve found.
[Note]: A lot of the hacks I found require a program called Cheat Engine 5.5 to utilize. Since Zynga does not stand for this (I can tell by all the copyright claims I’ve seen) I will not be covering any of those. I’ll stick to the clean tips/tricks that won’t get your account banned, if you don’t mind.
1. Cook For Several
When you first start out in Cafe World, you only have 3 stoves and 3 counters to cook and serve with. This means that if you want to serve a lot of people, you should cook something that serves a lot of people. The Super Chunk Fruit Salad, for example, only takes 15 minutes to prepare, yet it serves 100 people. Remember, dishes that take longer to cook also get you more cash.
2. Table Placement Is The Key
Once you start cooking for several, dozens of people are going to flock to your restaurant. If you’re just beginning the Cafe World game, you are going to need to get some more tables and chairs in there as soon as possible. After all, you don’t want people leaving your restaurant in disgust because you couldn’t feed them in time.
Once you have purchased more tables and chairs, you need to place them strategically. The two best ways I’ve seen are in a U-shape and in rows with the counters blocking your cooks/servers in.
Trapping your servers causes the game to automatically serve everyone who is sitting down instantly. Also, with this configuration your tables are automatically cleared, saving you time. You won’t need to hire any extra help either, saving you money as well.
3. Door Placement Can Help Too
You want to strategically place multiple doors around your restaurant so as not to create a mess when people come in. They should be able to get to an empty seat, eat, and leave without a problem.
When you aren’t playing Cafe World, another cool Cafe World cheat is to remove the doors altogether. This way, no one can get in your restaurant while you’re gone, and you can keep your satisfaction rating from dropping.
To remove the doors, click Customize and drag them off the screen. They will then disappear. You can place them again when you are ready to re-open.
[Tip]: If you can’t remove the door, try blocking it in some way.
4. Plan For When You’re Away
When you stop playing the game and go to bed for the night, put on a dish that takes 12 hours to cook. This way, when you return to the game you’ll be ready to go with fresh food, allowing you to get things accomplished even in your sleep.
5. Gain Experience From Fast Foods
Once you’ve gained enough money to afford a few stoves, start cooking foods that take a short amount of time to prepare, say 5 minutes. If you need experience points fast, this is a quick and easy way to accomplish that.
6. Looking For Money? Visit Your Friends
A quick way to earn money is by visiting your friends’ restaurants. If you’re waiting for your food to be done, go visit all of your friends’ cafes every day and the coins will add up.
7. Clean Your Stove For Free
Tired of paying 15 coins every time you clean a stove? Instead of clicking the stove to clean it, a neat little Cafe World cheats is dragging it to your inventory. When you place the stove back in your cafe, it should be clean already.
Conclusion
I would like to note that some of these glitches are likely to be fixed sometime in the near future by Zynga, so if something I’ve listed here doesn’t work for you that could be the reason. For the most part, however, these tactics should be a good starting point for you to run a successful cafe.
As always, if you have any tips, tricks, or suggestions you would like to mention regarding Cafe World on Facebook, I’d love to hear your ideas below.
Image Credit: Libe Goad