Activision's David Crane blames Zynga for giving casual games a bad name

FarmVille creator Zynga just can't catch a break.

Activision co-founder and Pitfall! creator David Crane has jumped onto the anti-Zynga bandwagon and claimed that the San Francisco-based studio is responsible for giving casual games a bad name.

"Ten years ago everyone was playing these kinds of games and now everyone forgot they existed just because they're on phones now," Crane said in an interview with GameInformer.

"I kind of feel like I've always made casual games. I make games for people who like to have fun and enjoy games on any level. Games are about diversion; that's very casual. What has changed is that the word is being used in a sneering way to refer to a particular subset of titles."

"If you ask someone what they thought a casual game was a few years ago, they might have said something like Angry Birds. Now they'll probably say something like FarmVille. I don't like to lump those social games in with casual games. I think it's those Zynga-like games that give the 'casual' market a bad name," he later added.