Michael Arrington

From 'Scamville' to $550 in CityVille: reframing game spend as a hobby

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington wrote a 'Scamville' series assuming Zynga's money came from scammy ads, but nearly all of it was user pay. Arrington later spent $550 in CityVille and apologized, and Zynga framed big spenders as people funding a hobby.

“He used CityVille. He played CityVille. He spent $550 in the game. And then he said, I'm so sorry, I was wrong. I get it why adults would spend money in your games now. Because remember, there was no in-app purchase yet. And so all of the adults were like, there's no way adults are paying money for art. But we had, you know, a nurse in Indiana spending a couple thousand dollars a month in FarmVille. And this was her hobby.”