The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Why I'm going to play less Words With Friends

I like keeping in touch with friends on Facebook. I also enjoy playing Scrabble. Soon-to-be-Internet-flameout Zynga has a Scrabble-like game called Words With Friends that many of my friends play. Right now I've got about 10 games going.

For the past week or so, Zynga has been shoving entire 30-second commercials between my turns. That is, I play a word, and I either spend the next 35 seconds or so with my computer muted and the Facebook window hidden, or I leave Words With Friends entirely. Since the advertisements all seem to be for cleaning products and—I kid you not—something to make my yeast infection go away, I'm leaving the game a lot more often.

Today I was finally annoyed enough to complain to Zynga on their player support page. It turns out, many, many people are complaining. Everyone seems to agree: we all understand that Zynga has to make some money, so we all understand we're going to see ads. But 30-second TV spots? After every move? No. That has to stop.

So here I was, about to post my own complaint, and I got this:

No, Zynga, you may not have access to my friends just so I can post a complaint. Anyway, you already have access to my friends through Facebook, because I had to consent to that to play the game—so why remind me?

Comments are closed