Mafia Wars Facebook

For those of you who are out of the loop, there’s this little game the kids are playing on Facebook called Mafia Wars. According to the latest reports by game maker Zynga, Mafia Wars has over seven million active, daily players. Recently mafia wars game cards have become available for purchase at major retailers like Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and 7 Eleven. Zynga, the maker of mafia wars and other Facebook games like Farmville, CafeWorld, and YoVille has recently been estimated to be worth $5 billion. This is a privately-held company based out of San Diego.

Recently, however, the company has been hiring at a quick pace trying to keep up with their growth. They have opened studios in Texas, India, and China. Some are skeptical, however, as Farmville and Mafia Wars account for a large percentage of Zynga’s 23 million gamers worldwide, and both have recently reported losing users for the first time in the company’s history.

This meteoric rise has not gone unnoticed, as venture capitalist firms have recently given over $150 million dollars to Zynga.

Wait, aren’t these games free? How does Zynga make money? Well, if you’ve never played mafia wars, then you wouldn’t know. Yes, the game is completely 100% free to play, but in order to unlock items or certain things in the game, you have to either have a significant number of people in “your mafia” or you can purchase the rewards via the game cards or online.

Another money-making feature in mafia wars is energy. Players can only do as much as their energy allows, but Zynga offers energy packs for sale at their store. These digital products are making Zynga millions of dollars.

Mafia Wars is a highly addictive game, and arguably the most popular text-based game in the entire world. Zynga reports players from almost every corner of the globe. Their games, like Mafia Wars, have been big hits in Asian markets that play games more at internet cafes as opposed to western markets who usually purchase games for unlimited home use. Asian markets are used to having to pay per time played, and because their time in the café is limited, they don’t want to sit around waiting for their energy to come back because it is literally costing them money. Better for them to purchase energy packs from Zynga so they can keep playing until their time is up.