Slashdot Mirror
Farmville, Social Gaming, and Addiction
MarkN writes "Facebook has been trumpeting the fact that Farmville, the most popular game on its site, has more users than Twitter, with 69 million playing over a month and 26 million playing each day. Combined with Facebook's announcement that they have hit 350 million users, that means one out of every five people on Facebook is playing Farmville. Gamasutra has a post taking a critical analysis of Farmville, its deceptively slow level grind, how a number of gameplay features end up as simply decorative since they aren't balanced with the benefits of raising crops, and discussing why Farmville succeeds so well in virally spreading itself and addicting people."
Something I overheard: "Can I grow weed on Farmvile and sell it on Mafia Wars?"
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a glorified version of Harvest Moon.
Hey, 1 in 5 people use this application. Remember that once the application has more than a million users, it can access not only your personal information, but everyone's personal information you can access. So, in short, the creators of Farmville have access to most, if not all, of the Facebook database. Moo, moo.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Security and "China farmers".
First, the security issue is an obvious one, when you're tempted to hand out your password so someone can "babysit" your farm.
The other one would be an interesting one indeed. So far, I doubt any online farming game (usually browser games) got big enough to even attract "goldsellers", whatever form they may take. Now, I neither have a facebook account nor play this game, so someone who does might be able to give me a hint whether it's possible to hand over money (or whatever resource there is) in the game, but it would be interesting to see what the owners of Facebook think of a sudden dramatic increase of new users who all just play this game, know each other and basically are nothing but a huge grinder farm (no pun intended). I'd guess they wouldn't be too happy since it would poison their data pool quite a bit.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I think the fact that a poor game can be so popular is the fact that they are targeting addicted social network users. That is like saying you can sell games and apps for more on an iphone... duhhh. It is all about the user base. I bet you could shoot fish in a barrel too...
Due to Farmvilles massive spamming, and my inability to make it stop telling me when my sisters/friends/coworkers have found a new cow, I've actually resorted to unfriending people who are farmville addicts. My "newsfeed" went from updates on my friends lives to 3/4 farmville useless announcements, making it effectively useless. I was tempted to install the app to see if I could filter them somehow, but ultimately said forget it.
It's fine if people want to play games, but frankly, the rest of the world doesn't care or need to know that you planted seeds. If I installed a facebook app that broadcasted every time I got a green drop in WoW I'm sure my friends wouldn't be too happy.
Add to this the Mafia wars spam, and these stupid little apps have made a mess out of what was once a useful tool for me to keep on top of my friends day to day and related silliness.
We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us. - Douglas Coupland
Except, most "nerds" wouldn't be caught dead playing this game.
If only FarmVille approached even a fraction of the things you can do in the Harvest Moon series.
I think saying it's a glorified version is being too nice.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Facebook will ruin your life.
A few months ago I signed up on Facebook, just for the heck of it. Then I noticed that there were a lot of people I went to High School with on there. Pretty soon I was gettng friend request from them. One day I got a friend request from an old girlfriend who I hadn't seen since graduating. My only memory of her was when she was 17 -- cute with big titties. And then I looked at her current picture.
She has not aged well.
My fantasies are ruined.
A lot of gamers have played Runescape, Diablo 2 or similar and experienced enough "why am I wasting my time", "but it's so addicting" to learn to resist starting a new addicting game. A lot of Farmville players likely haven't experienced this, so they have no built up immunity and will waste their time without a second thought.
While you could argue any game is a waste of time, Farmville's grind only earns you the opportunity to continue grinding- no end goal, no endgame sandbox. At least when you have a goal in sight you can tell when it isn't getting any closer.
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I wouldn't even go on my facebook page if it wasn't for the games. The people that use facebook are BORING.
I really don't care what any of my friends had for dinner, the new dress they bought or what their little kids did that morning. Yes, clicking random bullshit in Mafia wars is more interesting to me than those things.
I attempted to steer updates into the things that interest me (programming and technology) but gave up after one of my "friends" just posted a "what?" comment on it.
I then realized that the social aspect of Facebook is completely uninteresting to me. I'll just stick with slashdot, forums, newsgroups, IM and IRC for doing my nerd chat.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
It ever occurred to you that facebook has complete control of/access to your facebook account?
(Yeah.. I also feel like killing someone when I see those "John Cusak found a black sheep on his farm")
If you are really concerned about the data at your account why putting it on facebook at the first place.. the problem with paranoia these days is that some people are still shy about their data... internet is here fellas... privacy is something from last century when REAL farm people could "do it" behind the barn for years without no one knowing it..
I also have those apps and feel in some way like you but not bc they could get my data, I hate them because they are fucking stupid!
Seems to me that farmville success is only due to "Idle" people wanting to be in facebook all the time (to check that new photo their ex has shared).. they keep playing just as killing time...
Do you just load the page and wait to see what happens?
There's a lot you can filter if you take two seconds to look.
Everyone where I works plays it, except me, it's total cheese but they love it...why?
Because to them it's better than working.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I really don't care what any of my friends had for dinner, the new dress they bought or what their little kids did that morning.
When you visit your friends, you do say "hey, nice new dress!", or "how're the kids doing?", or "so how's that diet you're on working out for you?", right?
Oh well, if they're geeks too, I suppose "So did you hear about this new smartphone that runs Linux?" is more appropriate, but it sounds like you're dissing small talk rather than dissing facebook as a medium for small talk.
The latter I agree with, the former I don't---even though I'm not a particularly well-renowned practitioner of said art ;-)
Except, most "nerds" wouldn't be caught dead playing this game.
I have a friend who is a well-known cryptographer. He is a tenured professor at the best university in his home country (it's also the best-known university in his home country; the two aren't always the same). Some of his work has become part of important international standards. I have used applications built on his work, and depending on how nerdy you are and what kind of work you do, you might have used some too. His work has won awards and has been recognized by his peers at major academic conferences on cryptography. Whether or not you have heard of him, you have almost certainly heard of some of his collaborators in other countries, even if you aren't a cryptography nerd. If that's not enough "nerd cred" for ya, he is also a fluent speaker of five languages, can get by really well in a sixth, can imitate different accents in at least one of his non-native languages, and has some knowledge of two other real languages plus Klingon.
And because I was sick to death of seeing his FarmVille updates and my sister's Mafia Wars updates, I finally learned how to block updates from those two applications just today.
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
Nah, dude; women play other MMOPGs, and have been for a long time. They just pretend to be men so that guys who post off-topic sexist remarks to /. (and the guys who mod those guys up) will stop harassing them.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
Not really, there are lots of MMORPG-style games that attract a lot of women players (think pet sites like Neopets), its just Farmville has a large amount of players because of A) the incentive to recruit (you can get gifts from people) B) The need to come back constantly (otherwise your crops die) and C) Coming back regularly improves the game (even if your crops might not die if you don't get there right as they are ready, but you can plant more crops then). Mix all that with the social networking side of it (anyone can see the farm and you can post pictures) and the decorating side of it (lots of items to decorate) and you have an MMO that many women enjoy.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I've got a friend that purchased on his own a Wii (so his kids/wife can play games) and a PS3 for his hardcore (FPS and fighting) games. He received a xbox360 as a gift from a cousin. Probably has about a $1000 worth of platforms and associated games.
Yet if his wife doesn't tell him "Go to bed, it's late" he can play Mafiawars/Farmville until the sun comes up. Amazing how addictive these games are without having to have massive graphics, sound, rumble controllers, online multiplayer. Just a flash interface and a bunch of clicking.
I'm waiting for Southpark to do an episode on Farmville as a remake of the WoW episode.
And, then there is FarmTown, almost the exact same game. That's the annoying bit about Facebook apps, everyone one has at least two or three near duplicates.
http://lite.facebook.com
Anon Coward delivers.
I may be wrong, but my understanding is that FarmVille is a nearly complete ripoff of FarmTown, and FarmTown has a lot more interesting features (interaction with other players, etc).
rooooar
You can disable that.
You can only fully disable it if you completely opt out of using any Facebook applications. While it's true that most Facebook apps are crap, it'd be nice to be able to play Lexulous with friends without having any black-hat or social marketer who's written a quiz have access to my name and list of friends (along with whatever other info I'm not careful enough about).
The option they need is: "only reveal even my mere existence to apps I've explicitly opted into."
Tweet, tweet.
Seriously. Farmville?
I'll do you one better.
I'm annoyed that I need a Facebook account just to receive what we used to call, "Email".
The advantage I see is that open messages can turn into impromptu, albeit simple discussion forums with built-in photo catalogs. This can be more useful than email for some jobs.
But that's not what it's all about, as Farmville indicates. I think Facebook touches some kind of primal-tribal-pack-animal nerve. Farmville itself might represent more than just a dumb game with an addictive tamagachi edge. It might be a subconscious response to the fact that our food supply is precarious and stupid and that survival might fairly soon depend upon being able to raise chickens and grow potatoes in your back yard.
-FL
I don't understand why people get all pissy when you mention Farmville. If you don't want to play, then don't. But you don't have to hate people that do and call them noobs or sheep.
The reason people play is the same reason people buy the Wii. It's accessible. Anyone can fucking play. Anyone. I know that for the hardcore player out there that just seems wrong, but you know what? The gaming world doesn't revolve around you.
If you don't what to see that shit in your news feed, choose to hide announcements from that app. Simple. Other people have other opinions. Learn to accept it.
In the interest of full disclosure, I'm level 41 in Farmville and have never paid a dime for content.