I don’t necessarily agree with his conclusions. I think he’s overly concerned with sexism while glossing over the fact that women (and mainstream gamers in general) may not be interested in the same play patterns, but it’s definitely worth a look.

via Lou Anders

As usual when these huge valuations come around, people tend to question whether or not the company is really worth it, especially when you consider they pulled off this kind of value in only 18 months.

But, as Venture Beat notes, this is all about the size of the audience. And let’s be honest here, games have never been this popular before. Even casual’s attempts to be mainstream meant titles only sold a couple of million at most.

Zynga has changed the game because they have done the single most important thing that you need to do in order to succeed online: They found the audience. Then they followed that up with a business model that works. It’s shown us an effective way to business in a world where the old media is still fighting their own biggest fans through draconian laws and DRM.

These are television numbers, and while there are many things that can (and probably will) go wrong as this business is further defined and consolidated, there is no doubt that things are different now then the were a year ago, and we won’t be going back.