Pincus: Legacy studios spent $15M-$20M over two years before testing demand
Mark Pincus · How to kill your bad ideas (with Zynga's Mark Pincus) · Jul 24, 2018 · at 18:06
Mark Pincus, founder of Zynga, contrasts traditional video game development cycles and costs with Zynga's rapid web-based release cycles.
0:00 / 0:12exact quote · 12.3s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“At the time, game companies would build an entire game and take even two years and 15, twenty million dollars before they even know if anyone wanted it, and we could come out with it on the web, maybe only spend four weeks.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Mark Pincus
Pincus: Founders should not accept coaching from non-operator VCs
“I actually have a lot of coaches, but I've chosen all them, and I'm not coachable by a VC who's never held this job, who never sat in this seat, and so I guess it's not exactly advice, but it was implied advice of, you know, I should pretend that I'm going to …”
Mark Pincus: The best product makers have the least ego and copy best
“The best product makers, the best masters of the craft,
Are the best at copying.
And they have the least ego around it.
And the most junior amateur people feel the need to change everything, and they're the worst at copying, and they fail for the wrong reasons…”
Pincus: When AI automates coding, product differentiation comes down to taste
“So, so I do think that everyone kind of becomes full stack when you, when the stack's automated and it's just promptable. And so I, and then it gets down to taste.”
Pincus: Startups should replace the MVP with rapid failure testing machines
“Do not build it right. Build a culture of building it wrong. Do not, build it right, presume some level of success. I love Eric Ries. We've had great debates. I, I'm in the same spirit, but that word viable is actually hurtful because viable also means hope of…”
Pincus: The metaverse will be huge, but not inside VR goggles
“I think that the metaverse is starting to happen and I think it's going to happen and it's going to be As big as Zuck thought, and it's just not going to happen inside of an immersive game goggle that is painful and hot to wear on your head, even if the form f…”
Pincus: Good founders have 95% right instincts but 25% right ideas
“The lesson from Tribe that came resoundingly out for me and still stands out, that as entrepreneurs, part of the journey that we're on is learning how to separate our winning instincts from our losing ideas. I think as a rule of thumb, if you're a good entrepr…”