switched.com — As of July, FarmVille was hosting the digital homesteads of 61 million users. But you probably know all that already. What we're going to examine is why Zynga and FarmVille got that large, why they will continue to grow, and how they have changed the face of gaming.
Aug 4, 2010 View in Crawl 4
infestusAug 4, 2010
farmville isn't a real "game" now starcraft 2 is what you call a real game.
halphpriceAug 5, 2010
I hear that.
doublebaconsodaAug 5, 2010
Until they start charging us for more maps and the awesome zerg/protoss units.
krandenAug 6, 2010
Was starcraft half finished because brood war was not out? Was reign of chaos half finished before Frozen throne came out?
doublebaconsodaAug 7, 2010
I am confused about what you said in your comment. I wasn't being sarcastic just a little garbbled with my wording. I am happy they have a whole game based on Terran. That way I know there are going to be 2 more kickass games to play in the future.
jabbrwockeyAug 6, 2010
Civilization V - THAT will be a game to go down in infamy
spiderman0505Aug 4, 2010
Ruins people's time like my fiance ... who isn't a real gamer
cyberdactylAug 5, 2010
If your fiance' plays Farmville, you need to run. . . not walk, as fast as you can.
teethandeyesAug 5, 2010
I wish my wife would play Farmville. Then I would have more time to do my thing.
tashleyeAug 5, 2010
My thoughts exactly. Perhaps if spiderman0506 had a few years and she was the wife and not the new toy fiance he would see it differently. Im with you. Let the woman play, more time for me to do things I want to do.
tashleyeAug 5, 2010
Give it time spiderman, you will see things differently soon enough.
joshdareAug 6, 2010
Wow, your fiancé must really ruin people's time.
ofnumbersAug 5, 2010
Oh, no guns = no game huh. f**king buried. I don't even play farmville and I consider this article contrite. The authors facts are also blatantly f**king wrong - As of July, Farmville was the most played game in the HISTORY OF EVER (it had far exceeded 100 million users, well over 1 quarter of FaceBooks total userbase @ the time). Microsoft responded by promptly buying the s**t out of the rights, in turn making every Zynga worker one happy person. Very soon, you will see games like Farmville on the Xbox Arcade. But f**k FARMVILLE, IT MAKES CHICKS HAPPY. Anyone who dugg this post is a virgin, guaranteed.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
tadghostal66Aug 5, 2010
An MMO style? Really? As an avid MMO gamer, I fail to see any similarities between Farmville and an MMO - that is unless the current definition of MMO is changing, in which case I'll not be an MMO gamer anymore.
Closed AccountAug 5, 2010
Bulls**t. It's just taken the core elements of MMOs that keep people playing them and stripped them down to their most basic so they can attract as many players as possible. These games are the spoiled grandchildren of MMOs.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
clippclopAug 5, 2010
"Massively multiplayer online"
MMO != MMORPG
There are numerous games that are MMOs that are not WoW or similar.
elohirAug 5, 2010
WTF is a 'male oriented agenda'?
elranzerAug 5, 2010
Bewbs
cloudberriesAug 5, 2010
It's a cynical cash-cow, that's what it is. An extremely clever, well built one at that. And this is coming from someone who played it solid for two weeks.
Zynga is to true gaming, as Uwe Bole is to cinema.
clippclopAug 5, 2010
They do get one thing extremely right though.
Their microtransaction set up is a thing of beauty. Keeps the gaming free for everyone. It pays the bills along with a good revenue. It offers no actual benefit other than speeding up certain things.
benroyAug 5, 2010
I can tell which of my friends are idiots because they are the ones who play FarmVille.
zeraAug 5, 2010
I can't tell.
I blocked it years ago with one click and almost forgot it's there on facebook.
tashleyeAug 5, 2010
I call BS. Farmville has only been on facebook for a little over a year. June 2009 to be exact. If your going to jump on the I hate Farmville band wagon have at it, just dont be a bullsh*tter. I hate bullsh*tters. Its as if you think your a notch above the rest because you blocked FV YEARS ago. Please go BS in a place where people are gullible and believe the vitriol spewed from your keyboard.
winmywiiAug 5, 2010
For the record some cars do need high octane gas, but the majority are designed to run on 86. Mostly high output (a lot of ties turbo charged). You can put 86 octane in a Mitsubishi Eclipse turbo and experience what real engine knock is all about.
I know what you are saying though. Your friends corolla will run fine on standard gas, but if it says premium fuel only on the dash it is a good idea to use it. I hate farmville, but admire zynga. My girlfriend buys scratch off tickets and it drives me insane.
krandenAug 6, 2010
Eh scratch off tickets aren't a big deal if you are just doing it for fun, I spend maybe 10$ a year on scratchers. Of course if you buy them expecting to win money you are probably retarded.
jabbrwockeyAug 6, 2010
My girlfriends roommate plays it.
She also blames the recession on Bush, because he started the Iraq war which then caused the recession (her words).
Closed AccountAug 5, 2010
Endless Farmville requests are one reason I quit Facebook.
zeraAug 5, 2010
That's dumb. One click and all the Farmville messages are blocked forever.
Closed AccountAug 5, 2010
Yes, I'm so "dumb" that I quit wasting my time of Facebook.
jhb207Aug 5, 2010
Irony?
thescientist213Aug 6, 2010
Yeah, better to waste your time on Digg.
i22ybAug 5, 2010
Anyone else have relatives that sign up for multiple Facebook accounts just to cheat at Farmville?
jhb207Aug 5, 2010
My uncle has 12 farms, all very high levels. Its insane. I gave up playing months ago , but miss seeing how angry and worked up he would get about the game.
zeraAug 5, 2010
"FarmVille Is Work Masquerading as a Game"
Yep. Welcome to MMORPG's. These aren't games at all, they are long tedious bouts of "work" that the user is tricked into doing by that consistent (yet false) feeling of accomplishment the games give. They even have a name for this boring "work", it's called "Grinding".
I know the Digg crowd has really gotten more immature lately, but I'm going to say it anyways. WoW is the same exact thing as Farmville. So far from actually being a game that it's not a game at all. Here's how you know. If a skilled player of a given game, can't pick up the most BASIC equipment that the game requires and compete, then it's not a game. WoW rewards players who stick to the game and invest thousands of hours, and that investment earns them things like extra damage weapons, and better armor. That's not a game. That is WORK. A game looks like this. The metal skill and ability to learn and improvise in a game like ping pong, or settlers of catan, or chess, or quake. THOSE are games.
Go ahead, bury me noobs.
mentalbeaverAug 5, 2010
You, sir, have my digg.
frostekAug 5, 2010
And my axe! /s
g8kprAug 5, 2010
And my hairy hobbit feet
smokezzAug 5, 2010
You say Digg has gotten more immature, and then end it with "noobs". Way to go.
To each his own on games. That's why there are a lot of different genres of games.
LooseBrieAug 5, 2010
Amen. Well 'spoken'. I too am obliged to do a series of sometime repetitive task for up to 10 hours a day, ony to find that my gold levels are increased at the end of every month. It's called having a job. Job = work, grinding = work, but for virtual reward.
tadghostal66Aug 5, 2010
I agree with the first sentence, but I don't think you can say MMORPG's are all non-games like Farmville, unless your saying "They're both hard and require hard work". While I detest Farmville, and don't much care for WoW, I'll defend the playability of (most) MMORPGS over Farmville any day.
I think you're just taking an aspect of both WoW and Farmville that you dislike and using that to say they are the same. If you're going to do that, you could also apply that to many popular (EU and US) board games.
I just hate seeing people compare Farmville (which isn't even a game) to MMORPGs, of which there are many, many good titles. The differences between Farmville and a good MMORPG is what makes one a game and one not-so-much.
fordsvt1Aug 5, 2010
"If a skilled player of a given game, can't pick up the most BASIC equipment that the game requires and compete, then it's not a game. WoW rewards players who stick to the game and invest thousands of hours, and that investment earns them things like extra damage weapons, and better armor. That's not a game. That is WORK."
I've been playing video games for 30 years and this definition is limited and bias.
You don't like MMORPGs? Fine, but to dismiss them because you don't like one aspect of their game play is stupid. Does the same definition also apply to a racing game where you have to drive slower cars and beat tracks to unlock newer, faster cars? Hell, why limit it to MMOs? Most RPGs make you grind XP, have a problem calling those games too? Or is it just when it's multi-player and competitive that you have a problem with it?
So any game that doesn't hand you the tools at square one to compete is "work" and not a game by default? That's just.... stupid.
Nice, mature use of "noob", btw. /s
Closed AccountAug 5, 2010
I can see why you say what you do, and I agree with you a lot of the way.
But I consider raiding in WoW to be an achievement when you beat a hard boss. Not because you get items, but because you managed to get 10-20 people to follow the correct procedure. This is a feat because a lot of the time people will complain, leave the raid, or act like total babies over a virtual item they didn't get. So when a raid runs smoothly - I consider that an achievement. The items you get, to me at least, are just a small bonus.
tashleyeAug 5, 2010
So you need cooperative friends to win WoW, yet thats not similar to FV where you get more when your friends help? Hmmmmmm, Im starting to get the impression that this entire thread and comments are about whos the real gamer. In case you havnt noticed there are a ton of "casual" gamers out there. Look no farther than the Wii. All the hardcore games in the world arent going to help Sony and Microsoft catch up in sales. Its called an untapped market. Nintendo struck oil on that one and everybody else is playing catch-up. You like many on this thread are just in denial. 60 plus million users cant all be stupid.
Closed AccountAug 5, 2010
Grinding while work true offers tangible benefits in other areas of MMO's generally high end content whether it's PVP and/or raiding. This is not like farmville et all that is entirely pointless.
Closed AccountAug 5, 2010
Are you serious? What game lets you beat it with the first basic weapon you pick up in the game, or if not a weapon, some sort of power?
joannchiladaAug 5, 2010
I played Farmville when it first came out. Admittedly I got sucked in. Then I realized I was tending to crops instead of making myself actual dinner, and I walked away. Actually I deleted my game completely. It gets boring after a while anyway.
For those players that spend their actual money and hours upon hours a day, if not Farmville they would be addicted to something else. It's not as if Farmville turned them into addicts.
g8kprAug 5, 2010
There are lots of games like Farmville on Facebook. I was in one called Space Wars or something like that. Where you had to "do missions" and then sucker other friends into doing missions. It took me about a week or two to realise that A) I couldn't get anywhere unless all my friends joined up and B) that it wouldn't matter because there was no "there", no end in sight at all. I found a hack through firefox that allowed me to have any person in the game in my "fleet" (which was previously limited to my friends). I maxed out the amount of fleet friends (500 i think) and still the game had no end, it got boring fast, and I never went back. Farmville never interested me for that aspect. As cheezy as they are, I stick to Bejewelled and Desktop defender for my casual facebook gaming.
m00nflowerAug 5, 2010
Same thing here ...farm just got to big and i was tired of clicking for like an hour a day. I only had fun designing my field and putting my name into it. I let it all die and blocked it ...now i feel free and only play bejeweled when I'm really bored or chatting with fb friends.
Closed AccountAug 5, 2010
Why are they comparing farmville to SimCity?
They're nothing alike.
jabbrwockeyAug 6, 2010
At least one still has developers working on it :-/
Closed AccountAug 7, 2010
Agreed.
I miss good SimCity games...
tadghostal66Aug 5, 2010
Farmville hasn't "changed the face of gaming" anymore than American Gladiators changed the face of Sports.
Both appealed to people who typically didn't care for the respective genres by giving them something they *were* interested in while pretending to be part of said genre. I remember my mother watching (and really getting into) American Gladiators when it first came out in the late 80s or early 90s (too lazy to check). She hated sports in general, and would never have watched any of the standard televised fare. We'd joke with her about how she'd become quite the sports buff because she got really interested in the "players" themselves, their "stats", etc.
plopfishAug 5, 2010
Yeah your mother was really interested in all those "stats" of those roided-out behemoths..... ;-P
theehmanAug 5, 2010
I used to play Mafia Wars far too much, then I got up one Saturday morning and decided I'm sick of playing this crap. Blocked the application and haven't looked back since.
wildAug 5, 2010
FarmVille tricked girls into playing an MMO. Thats how it works. WoW for the people who make fun of it.
elranzerAug 5, 2010
EverQuest is for those who make fun of WoW players.
skinny01Aug 5, 2010
I was new to this type of "game" a year ago. I didn't do farmville but mafia wars which is the exact same thing. I thought it was a strategy/decision-making game so I used to really put thought into what weapons to get, best properties to buy to get the best return, etc...
After playing for a while I could finally start to see what it's really about and it is just a time waster. If you spend money, you can get better weapons so skill/decision-making really goes out the window.
Lots of changes happened in the past few months that made me completely drop it and all the other "click games" like it (cafeworld, etc...). They added new levels that of course can only be played if you add new people, forcing you to be a recruiter if you want to move forward. And also, things that used to only take 1 or 2 clicks, now take 3-5. That's the exact opposite of what any user experience person would design. You want to do more with less clicks. Zynga wants a lot more clicks, trying to force you to stay on the pages longer and/or constantly refreshing your pages or making you have to go back to it again.
You used to be able to buy a property, then have it sit and make money for you, you didn't have to play, you could wait until you earned a nice bankroll. The changed that so now there are time limits, the money stops building until you log in and collect it, forcing you to stay active in the game. The same thing is done with the robbing function.
So in a nutshell, it's just a click machine. It wants you to sit all day mindlessly clicking, paying money in the beginning to keep from being destroyed too easily, and to recruit everyone you know to do the same. At least in scrabble there's some mental stimulation.
warpfieldAug 5, 2010
Handy addicition identifier. I guess games like FarmVille help separate the.... wheat from the chaff. :)
lantzaAug 5, 2010
"Dude I can't hang out tonight, I need to harvest my crops."
"Oh, ok. Maybe tomorrow then."
vs.
"Dude I can't hang out tonight, my arena team needs to get our games in."
"You really need to quit that s**t. You're addicted."
r0g3rAug 5, 2010
At least there's skill, and therefore legitimate challenge and FUN involved in playing a team arena game. As well as a much more involved camaraderie than Farmville if you're playing on a serious team. When I was younger (quake 2 days) I used to play on a team and it was very fun and there was legitimate challenge in climbing the ladder, which is completely different from Farmville. I wasn't so hardcore that I scheduled my life around it, but I put a bit of time into it as a recreational pursuit, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
Farmville is a scheme that encourages a person to actively annoy their friends and family, where as multiplayer FPS games are legitimate games, with actual gameplay mechanics and challenge involved.
path411Aug 6, 2010
Although yes, WoW is more fun than Farmville, WoW arena was very little skill involved. It was mostly grinding and team composition.
Grind out gear > Set up a good team comp > Grind out games played as your comp.
r0g3rAug 6, 2010
Maybe I'm not familiar with the terminology because I don't play WoW, but I was referring to first person FPS games like Quake 3 Team Arena. I thought that was what was meant by team arena games.
azathothhAug 5, 2010
Buried for Farmville
azzk1krAug 5, 2010
Obligatory link regarding FarmVille (for those who haven't seen it yet): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odBDAcOEKuI
frostekAug 5, 2010
I was looking for this. :-D
crickey23Aug 5, 2010
I am in no way going to defend Farmville (or any of Zynga's other games for that matter), but sadly I did try it for a few days, and I can see what's so damn addicting about these mindless games. The more you plant/harvest/sell/gift/add neighbors/whatever, the more accomplished you feel very quickly into the game. And the author is right, it does become a chore. A few days in instead of saying "oh, now that I have time I can harvest that stuff I started growing yesterday", it became "man, I have to go play Farmville again?" I got bored of it, but there are people who have nothing better to do--stay-at-home parents, bored teens, the unemployed--who I can see being roped into the monotonous cycle.
Zynga's games do indeed appeal to the lowest common denominator with the idea that anyone can play and there's really no thought required. I'm beginning to think that, really, these sorts of games are no more like Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing, other than you have to make an effort to keep on it (I say this lightly, because with Animal Crossing if you don't regularly play you'll get weeds and miss "important" events). It even resembles these games with the sheer amount of things there are to collect. I used to in my free time drop hours into Animal Crossing just trying to finish the catalog. Why are Zynga's games any different?
I could go on about the similarities (even to using physical money to get virtual items), but why waste the energy when I can spend hours of my day mindlessly clicking on links on Digg? At least it's slightly more intelligent than Zynga games.
zannaduAug 5, 2010
I suddenly really want to play Harvest Moon.
breakstuffAug 5, 2010
O god. My wife used to play that game. Don't remind me.
jabbrwockeyAug 6, 2010
Did you ask her to the dance?
sithlrdAug 5, 2010
Wasted away again - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezDKQ7IrdlY
elranzerAug 5, 2010
I don't see why so many people keep giving credit to some garage company that ripped off Harvest Moon.
huntermcwhiteAug 5, 2010
Yeah, how dare people have fun playing a simple game.
They are ruining everything!
mattbdAug 5, 2010
I am looking forward to Civ Networks - that way at least there will be a decent game as an alternative to Farmville.
pimnlAug 5, 2010
I thought it was a really fun game for one month, and then you have everything, and the addiction is gone..
Know many people who played it for a few weeks, and after that they forget about it, including me.
wfreegameAug 6, 2010
play another farm game :
http://wfreegame.com/games-1030-farm-frenzy-3.html
pearljamvixenAug 6, 2010
I get a real kick out of how folks feel the need to publish on Facebook every single lost cow, harvest bonanza or need for nails that occurs in game. Of course, these are the same friends who love to keep me updated on their progress in Bejeweled, Mafia Wars, Happy Fish Tank and Frontierville. But, they make me feel very popular as I am the constant recipient of invites to join in and water crops or help feed their fish. My social calendar overfloweth!
popsantiagoAug 13, 2010
Because you are not only a FarmVille Addict, MyFarmVilleSS lets share your screenshot farm on our website's page. People rate your creation : Artist or Farmer!!! - http://www.myfarmvilless.com
neutron7Aug 25, 2010
Farmville is responsible for a massive reduction in the national sammich output.