Podbit · Freakonomics Radio
FarmVille had 83 million monthly players in 2010 and generated 12% of Facebook's revenue by its 2012 IPO. Then players wised up, fatigue set in, and the bubble burst. Jonathan Knight — who ran FarmVille — is now betting the NYT won't make the same mistake.
Where this was said
At 51:40 · chapter starts 51:20
With the NYT's games success attracting imitators — the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and others have launched their own game divisions — Dubner presses on whether this is a durable business or a fad. Zimmerman provides historical context: FarmVille had 83 million monthly players in 2010 and generated 12% of Facebook's revenue at its 2012 IPO. Then player fatigue killed it almost overnight. The pattern repeats in gaming: a new platform or revenue model gets so intense that players reject it and move on. Knight, who ran FarmVille at Zynga, pushes back from inside the Times: Wordle has shown 'incredible resilience,' and the desire for people to associate the Times brand with quality puzzles is built to last. The answer isn't to chase the trend — it's to keep innovating with new puzzles that re-engage existing subscribers and attract new audiences.
FarmVille drew 83 million monthly players in 2010 when Facebook was still young, with Facebook taking a 30% cut on all in-game purchases.
By the time Facebook went public in 2012, 12% of its revenues came from Zynga games, underscoring how central gaming was to early Facebook's business model.
Sam built Algrow, a SaaS for finding viral content formats, with zero coding experience using ChatGPT and Cursor. Six months later: 10,000 users, $14K/month in revenue.
Sam's first MVP threw an application error on its very first user — and he shipped it anyway. The core idea worked, and that was enough to validate the product and keep users coming back.
Sam joined Discord voice chats, muted himself, and silently screen-shared his product. Users in the chat started tagging him asking what the tool was. No pitch needed — curiosity did the selling.
Most founders post links in Discord and immediately get banned for self-promotion. Sam's approach was the opposite: build rapport, help people with the tool, let word of mouth do the work.
Find where your ICP lives. Listen before building. Validate with DMs and Loom recordings. Build in public with users inside your own Discord server. Turn early adopters into advocates with free access.
Instead of fearing the self-promo ban in large Discord servers, create your own private server for your product. You funnel in ideal customers and build a relationship that email can't replicate.
Algrow helps creators find and replicate viral video formats, starting at $25/month. It analyzes subscriber counts, average views, and trending formats — and can even generate the videos with AI.
After weeks of Sam silently screen-sharing in a Discord server, the server owner — unprompted — made a full YouTube promotional video about Algrow. Sam paid nothing and asked for nothing.
Producer Gus admits Discord never crossed his mind as a customer acquisition channel. Pat connects the insight to a broader lesson: match your distribution channel to where your actual customers live.
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