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Myspace Mobsters: a Look at the Popular Game

April 4th, 2009 by ZDD General

by ZDD General

In social network gaming, 2008 was a year for crooks, both online and off, as only seemed appropriate given the industry?s top titles, applications made to work on sites like Facebook and Myspace ? Mob Wars and Mafia Wars.

It was David Maestri who built the winning architecture of Mob Wars, in which the allure of leveling up with ?favor points? from ?The Godfather? induces users to fill out paid online surveys, apply for services, and even pay out of pocket. But it was a fact he was far from keen to publicize when his profits soared in February of 2008 (they would eventually level off at about a million dollars a month).

Maestri adopted the pen name Jason Gilbert because, when he released the game, he was still working at Freewebs, the company that would go on to become SGN. As with most tech companies, Maestri?s contract stipulated that anything he created while employed would be the intellectual property of the company. Yet somehow SGN?s legal actions fell flat ? they were given a cash settlement and told they had the right to make a similar text-based mafia game should they wish. They did, as a trip to the iPhone app store will tell you ? their version includes a virtual shooting range and 3D navigation.

But for Mob Wars maestro Maestri the drama looks set to continue, as Mark Pincus? company Zynga appears to have emulated the exact theme and structure of Mob Wars with Mafia Wars. At last tally, the active-user-base of Zynga?s game had already outgrown Maestri?s, drawing in similarly huge amounts of money.

Maestri filed suit against Zynga in January. It?s a case with important ramifications for issues of intellectual property, made all the more urgent by the slew of text-based mob-game imitators that seem to be popping up all over the web – unchecked they could soon leave Maestri with little hope for successfully protecting his creation.

Gaming tactics are the subject of many a forum and Facebook group. Some favor the Bulletproof boss, whose faster health regeneration allows him to engage in more prize-fighting, or the Tycoon’s faster pay-offs, which allow him to do more business. Still others prefer the higher energy levels of the Insomniac, by which he can accrue more experience by doing more jobs. One thing everyone needs to keep in mind is that it’s best to do everything in bulk. The bigger your mob, the more enemies you can take on, so start adding, deleting your new ‘friends’only once they’ve joined your posse. The bigger your property portfolio, the greater your hourly cash-flow, and the bigger the inventory you can maintain to equip your mob with the best armor, weapons and transportation. The trick to developing a big property portfolio is to wait until you have enough cash to buy, say, ten of a given property type, as their prices increase with each purchase.

As for shortcuts to big money, one sneaky tactic involves the Hitlist, on which high rankers with money to shred frequently post rewards in the hundreds of millions. By striking the killing blow to mobsters already weakened by other attacks, players can defeat bosses vastly more experienced than themselves, thus reaching the upper echelons of the game without the drudgery of honest criminal living.

And sure, filling in surveys, applying for services you probably don?t need, even forking out your hard earned cash are all effective paths to favor-point abundance. The flipside is to make like a real mobster would, and take advantage of the game?s blind spots, among them its susceptibility to Javascript-based add-ons that automate gameplay (check out userscripts.com). Since their inception, the Mob Wars team has done little to combat such cheating, allowing players to rack up the impossible point scores needed to reach the top tier of players (virtually all cheaters). Whether deliberate or not, it?s a lesson in business as much as it is in gaming. You want to make it in this world without getting your hands dirty? Fuhgeddaboudit!

About the Author:

About Author: ZDD Genneral loves to discuss mobsters adds for myspace and has a mobsters addssite.

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