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Soft Launch

In April 2017, Zynga soft-launched Mafia Wars.

Locations

The game was tested in Indonesia, taking advantage of low costs in advertising and publishing. The launch in Canada was to test our monetization since Canadian users behave similarly to US users.

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Indonesia

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Canada

Data Diary

We asked 54 people to keep a diary on their experience playing the game for 10 days. Below is an overall rating.

7.0

How do you feel about the overall fun of this game?

6.7

How likely are you to download and play this game when it is released?

6.3

How likely are you to recommend Mafia Wars to a friend, family member, or colleague?

Maybe consider more information on how to play, what mix works well, what gear is best for things, just nothing to really research what is going on.

Need to add a lot more incentives to play and buy packs in this game.

Seems to be a solid game. A few bugs to work out.

I like the game overall.

I would be interested in doing another play test for this game in the future.

Game Review

The Long View reviews a first play of Mafia Wars

Gameplay

Full play session with gameplay action notation.

Cancellation

After 4 months of Live Testing and Development, Zynga decided to cancel the project.

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New CEO and pivot in company new game development strategy.

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Poor retention, as engagement (of the users we had left) was actually quite high.

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High advertising costs coupled with the low retention resulting in poor ROI.

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