Former Zynga Engineer: One Player Spent $100,000 on Mafia Wars

$20 on Mafia Wars because some jerk kept killing me over and over again. Frustrated, I paid $20 to buy more mafia members and kept killing him back until he reported me. Best $20 I've ever spent on a game. On a side note: I've quit Mafia Wars and have since deactivated Facebook. I actually get to go outside and enjoy life now.

if people are spending that kind of money then surely they are addicts. very sad.

I didn't spend a dime. It's more entertaining to build your Mafia Wars empire from nothing. I consider it cheating to spend money in the game to get boosts and advantages.

I spent a $1000 on Mafia Wars. It was all small amounts - $20 here, $40 there. 2 years later I added up all the amounts by checking my credit card statements and found I had spent $1000. I couldn't believe I had done that but the game was addicting. I finally abandoned it completely in mid-November. Now I wish I still had that $1000.

I played Mafia Wars for over a year. I never paid a dime to do so, either.

I'm an engineer/computer programmer and do a lot of hobbyist programming. It's one of my favorite past times.

I created my own iMacro scripts for Firefox which would literally play Mafia Wars for me. I didn't play Mafia Wars because it was fun. I played because it was fun to write a program to play the game for me, and because it was fun to mock the tedium which occurs when one actually plays Mafia Wars.

Without paying a single penny, in a year's time my account rose to higher ranks than pretty much anyone who had dumped money into the game. It was really just simple applications of calculus and a ton of error correcting (the error correcting due to Zynga's poor programming).

After a year, there were no programming challenges left - so I quit. I learned a LOT in the process, and I'm a much better programmer because of it!

So, if you're going to play a Zynga product, then do it in a manner which enriches YOU - not them. Don't pay them a dime. Learn something along the way. If you can't find something in their products which do for you what they did for me, then you've got no business playing them. It's a waste of your time, and it's a waste of your money.

Games are for leisure, but also try to make sure that the games you play are for LEARNING as well :)

LMAO. If you ever spent money on a Zynga game then you are, without a doubt, a F'n idiot. You have paid people actual money for the pleasure of clicking a button to see a number change that is absolutely meaningless. A sucker is truly born everyday.

pay to win games are garbage

I have never spent a dime on these games. I play them but never spent a dime

This is even better than a casino...customers paying thousands for "virtual" goods and services!?!......I can't even afford real food.........and absolutely no risk for Zynga. wow

I am one of the free "spammers." I refuse to pay for any of the games. Especially the glitch-ridden games that Zynga puts out. If they would actually take the time to get rid of the glitches in the games they already have before putting out a new one, perhaps I would change my mind. The way the Zynga games are going I won't be playing any of them much longer.

I was addicted to Zynga. It took me months to finally break it; and only reason I was able to break it was that I convinced myself that the game, Mafia Wars, was going in the direction that you "had" to buy reward points in order to finish events and properties. I told myself, I "have" to quit, and I did, last December, going into second month with no zynga. Funny, psychologists say you are not addicted to games; in 10 years, when productivity will go down, and they find out people are "farming" instead of working or paying attention to their families, Zynga will be under major scruitiny. If it was not an addiction, why else would anyone spend thousands on items that in one week are obsolete?

I hate to admit it, but I used to be a World of Warcraft addict. I didn't spend any money beyond the monthly fee ($12 or something). I would play as soon as I got home from work well into the wee hours of the morning, I'd play all weekend with almost no sleep, and I'd even take days off of work so I could play. It was bad. So I understand video game addiction and it's as destructive as drug addiction. It doesn't matter what game it is, if you spend more than a few hours a week playing video games, stop. Spend time with family and friends. It's much more rewarding.

Never spent a cent on an online game and have no intent to start. If I am spam for playing free then i guess I am the spam for the spam! Free content is supposed to be really free, but in the online world nothing is really as free as we often think it is

Why in the heck would I spend "Real Money" for virtual items... That's just crazy to me that so many people. I use to play Mafia War, Farmville and Cityville, but I refuse to spend real cash...

I have never nor will I ever spend a dime on Zynga. I respect everyone's choices tho, if you want to drop $ on a virtual game then by all means, who am I to tell you what to do with your money? $100k is a lot of money but if you have it then it is your problem...err...I mean, choice =)
The day I spend any money is the day I quit playing it.

I stay away from Zynga games altogether. It is not really a loss, all they make are glicthy games that half the time do not work. You would think they could use some of that money to hire programmers that could actually write good code so their apps would stop crashing all the time.

there are several players known to many who have spent well over 100k,.that being a bare minimum,so 1 spending 100k isnt new news..

I played a couple of zynga games but have since dropped to one because of the ridiculous posting you have to do in order to complete stuff in the game. I have spent at the most maybe 50 buck on the games and a card was bought for me one time by my daughter. I told her thank you but that i didnt spend cash on a game.

Never have spent a dime. Just played for free. Yeah it sucked sometimes, because in our culture of, "I must be First," It sucked not "winning" in something, but then I would relax and say, "Im worrying about Facebook Games?" Then I would laugh and be happy Im 8,000th in whatever game.

Wow - I never considered spending a dime on Mafia Wars. I guess I'm "spam". If I spend $$ on a game - it would be Xbox where I receive something in return and do something more than just click a mouse.