Zynga Frustrates With New Leveling System in Hold'em

Recently, internet gaming companies, Zynga, changed their level format for Texas Hold’em, and let’s just say all the new “fish” are livid.

Zynga, a social gaming company, is most known for providing entertainment to social networking sites, like Facebook, by producing games like Mafia Wars, Texas Hold’em and the currently rated “most used” application on Facebook: FarmVille.** As all of their games have skyrocketed in popularity, Zynga has constantly sought out the encouragement and recommendations of their users on ways to improve the games. (“Add tractors so we can plow faster.”) However, the new leveling system on Texas Hold’em has many scratching their heads.

It used to be that you went up in rank as you earned more money. From Shark, to Big Dog, and up through “Pro” when you reached a chip count of $100,000. After that, you gained another level at $250,000, etc. Now, even players with a chip count exceeding one million have an insulting word behind their name: Fish.

People who have been playing the game since its conception are now at the bottom of the totem pole and have to work their way up, all over again. To Zynga’s credit, our old levels are still there, if you let the mouse hover patiently over our faces at the table, but I am discouraged when I used to see “Pro” and now see “Fish”.

Playing in a “Sit N Go” tournament last night, the room was a buzz with the new levels and the frustration behind it. Nearly everybody at my table was a $1,000,000 player with a VIP standing and now they’re nothing but Fish. (VIP’s gain status by cashing in $1,000,000 worth of chips or buying a VIP tag.)

Zynga claims that the new leveling system demonstrates players true poker ability by basing the levels on the number of hands won, as opposed to a simple chip count. According to their blog/press release: “…the old system was never a true measure of progress in the game, and it left a lot of people feeling little sense of improvement on a regular basis. Imagine a player -- let’s call her Julie -- who reached Pro 1M and has a bad day where she loses all her chips. For the next few weeks, Julie doesn't progress towards the next level until she crosses the 1M threshold again, despite Julie playing extremely well and winning lots of hands. However, in our new XP based system, Julie will progress towards the next level on each hand she plays.” The reasoning is sound, but the frustration from players is still evident. Hopefully it won’t make players stop playing, but rather encourages them to play more.

*** All three of these games are addictions of mine. I wish we had a gas tank per vehicle, though, in FarmVille… And an “energy pack” every 12 hours, for Mafia Wars. Hint, hint, Zynga…