ZYNGA: Mafia Wars 2 ‘a disappointment’, ‘learning experience’

Zynga’s CEO Mark Pincus has revealed his thoughts on Mafia Wars 2, admitting that the game disappointed and lacked on a ‘fun, core, playable’ level.

Pincus shared his assessment on the sequel to the multiplayer social network hit in an interview with Yahoo.

Last year "Mafia Wars 2" was a disappointment and a learning experience for us,” Pincus explained. We didn’t get the game down to a fun, core, playable flight that we could go out and test with real people early enough.

These projects can take on a life of their own and get big. And we had such a passionate connection with "Mafia Wars" and we were in love with the idea of a graphical version of it that we were more committed to that than we were to getting something fun out early.”

Pincus also pointed out that the game was one of the few company slip-ups to see the light of day.

Yes [there are disappointments.] Although I’m happy to say there’s more that were disappointments that never saw the light of day that those that have been disappointments that have seen the light of day. But we are a learning company and a learning industry and we learn quickly.”