As many Draw Something fans know, this delightful app has become the victim of a very upsetting corporate “they ruined a great thing” story. But today, I’m delighted to be the bearer of good news. After doing a little sleuthing, I’ve learned that a happy ending is on the way.
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Draw Something is an insanely popular app for iPhone and Android phones. It’s something like online Pictionary: you’re given a word, like “cupcake” or “hippo” or “America.” Using simple drawing tools (four line thicknesses, four colors, an eraser), you do your best to draw that word for a Facebook friend, an e-mail buddy, or, if you’d rather, a complete stranger on the Internet. If your new pal identifies what you’ve drawn (by spelling its name with a set of letter buttons), you’re both awarded virtual coins, which you can use to buy more colors.
Draw Something has become an important element in my family life. For four months now, I’ve been on the road a lot, shooting a Nova series on PBS that will air this fall. When I’m away, I’ve kept in touch with all three of my children (7, 12 and 14) in all the usual ways — texting, e-mail, phone — but, even more frequently, by playing Draw Something with them. There’s a weird kind of bond that happens — you can’t see or talk to one another, but you’re playing a very expressive game across the airwaves.
It’s also handy that Draw Something is like a game of chess-by-mail: when I draw something for you, you don’t have to try guessing it until you have a free moment. At any time, therefore, you might have 10 or 12 Draw Something back-and-forths going on at once.
Draw Something succeeds because it’s incredibly simple. Anyone can do it. You can’t get killed, there’s no time pressure, and nobody really loses. Because it’s not easy to make a good drawing with your fat finger, it’s very entertaining, and frequently laugh-out-loud funny. The between-round animations get tedious and repetitive — why can’t we tap the screen to skip them?—but otherwise, it’s a gem of an app.
No wonder that Draw Something became a screaming success. Only three months after its release, 50 million people were drawing away on their screens — and then, last month, the phone-game giant Zynga bought the game and its maker, OMGPop, for $180 million. (There are even Web sites, like this one, that gather up the most impressive Draw Something drawings.)
Last week, though, Zynga released an updated version (for iOS — Android to come) that adds some frequently requested features. You now have a one-step Undo feature for your drawing boo-boos. You can now type little comments to your fellow player, like “Great drawing!” or “That was supposed to be a hippo!?”
In previous versions, you couldn’t save a drawing unless you knew how to use your phone’s screen-capture feature. In the new version, though, you can save a masterpiece directly into your phone’s photo collection. You can also share it directly to your Twitter account or Facebook page — and here’s where the trouble starts.
The instant you open the updated app, you get a message that says: “Draw Something may post on my behalf, including status updates, photos and more.” You can tap Allow or Don’t Allow.
If you tap Don’t Allow, however, then you can’t connect to Facebook at all. You lose all the games you’ve been playing with your Facebook friends. And you lose one of Draw Something’s best features.
The legions of Draw Something fans are not pleased. Hundreds of one-star reviews are bombarding its page on the iTunes App Store. Some examples:
* “Forced Facebook spamming is a deal-breaker. Avoid this game like the plague now that it’s turned into a scam to hack your Facebook account.”
* “Fun game but now they got greedy and want access to my Facebook account full-time to data-mine me.”
* “I paid for this game, so you shouldn’t make me give you permission to post on my Facebook page in order to let me play. 1 star for violation of my rights.”
I was baffled by all of this. I’d clicked Allow, and Draw Something had never posted anything on my Facebook page. I checked in with a few other friends — same story. Nobody had actually heard of Draw Something posting something on Facebook without your involvement.
Is it possible that all of those furious fans are, in fact, mistaken? Could it be that they’re just afraid the app might post on their Facebook pages — but it actually doesn’t?
Yes. That’s exactly what’s going on.
Zynga blew it, all right — but not for the reason people think.
In fact, the programmers were trying to be good guys, not evildoers. They wanted to make sure you were O.K. with posting a drawing on your Facebook page — when you tap the Facebook Share button during a game. Unless you explicitly tap that Share button, nothing ever appears on Facebook.
Zynga’s mistake was asking this permission at the moment you open the app, and wording the message idiotically. What should happen, of course, is that no message appears until you try to post a picture. Then, and only then, should the app ask for permission.
Well, guess what? That’s exactly how the next version will work. Zynga will soon release an update that seeks your permission only when you tap the Facebook Share button.
(I hope that the new version will also include less alarming wording. Instead of saying, “Draw Something may post on my behalf, including status updates, photos and more,” the message should simply say: “Is it O.K. to post this drawing on your Facebook page?”)
Zynga isn’t the first company to make this rookie mistake. Over and over again, Google or Yahoo or Apple winds up in the hot seat of public opinion because of the wording in some agreement. Some new service comes out, and its license agreement says, “You agree that anything you write or post belongs to us.” (See Google Plus, iBooks Author…). There’s a public outcry. The software company admits that it just used boilerplate legal “cover our backs” language and doesn’t really intend to own your work. And it sheepishly revises the agreement.
O.K., software industry, you’ve been put on notice: Nowadays, there’s more to it than design, features and marketing. Sometimes, the success of your app can ride on the wording and placement of a single dialog box.