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?"
San Francisco Photographers
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
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...
Except, most "nerds" wouldn't be caught dead playing this game.
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.
It takes one click to block an unwanted application like Farmville from posting to your News Feed. There's a "Hide" option on any News Feed story which will block all posts from that application. Very useful.
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.
My webcomic
He just needs an excuse to explain why he is friends with so few people
Life is rarely fair. Cherish the moments when there is a right answer.
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
(Looking for "Like" link...)
it sounds like you're dissing small talk rather than dissing facebook as a medium for small talk.
Ah, thats not a real diss, try these:
My old quote: "facebook is a workflow automation system for relationships between stereotypical middle school girls"
My new quote: "facebook is a computer optimized maximal shallowness solution to impress people you don't care about".
Now, which one is more accurate, and/or offensive?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
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.
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.
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