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VC Defends Farmville, Touts Virtual Tractor Sales

Posted by Soulskill on from the see-the-economy-is-fine dept.

theodp writes "In a blog post, venture capitalist Fred Wilson gives his thoughts on ripe areas for tech investment in 2010 — mobile, gaming, new forms of commerce/currency, Cloud platforms/APIs, education and energy/environment. Asked to comment on scams and social gaming (he is an investor in Zynga), Wilson defended Zynga's Farmville: 'Zynga makes almost all of its revenue on virtual goods. I said in my etsy/san telmo post the other day that more tractors are sold every day in Farmville than are sold in the US every year. That's where the money is in social gaming. The "scammy ads" thing is total red herring that everyone got excited about but is almost entirely irrelevant.'"

20 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. So? by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In my Civ 4 game I built more battleships than the US ever produced in its history. Know why? Because it's a fucking game!

    I fail to see how they think that their number for tractor sales has anything to do with the fact that it is a borderline scam, and a crap game to boot.

    1. Re:So? by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What's a scam about it? They explain to you in simple language that it costs money to have certain items. I play farmville when I am waiting for my brain to function enough to play AlphaC in the wee small hours of the morning (sometimes by way of Pioneers) and it's amusing enough. There's a cute little sense of community, gift-trading with friends. And it has cost me nothing but time (and a share of my internet access bill, I guess.) Don't hate the game, hate the stupid, stupid players who spend actual money on it.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:So? by Rockoon · · Score: 3, Informative

      Very good game if you like turn-based strategy. Just one more turn...

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    3. Re:So? by xouumalperxe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      and a crap game to boot.

      That's your opinion (and mine as well, actually). But what are we when faced with the sheer amount of people who do play it, and when enough of those play it hardcore enough that they'll pay for virtual property to keep a company afloat?

    4. Re:So? by TheLink · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why should you hate the "stupid" players that spend actual money on it?

      They pay for the servers you use to play your game for free.

      --
    5. Re:So? by sopssa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And even more so, why should you hate or think the people are "stupid" just because they pay for entertainment they enjoy? I wouldn't pay for it. I don't think it makes that much sense either. But if they like it and think it's worth it, just let them do what they want. It doesn't make them more stupid, they just have different priorities or things they enjoy.

      Just as well as they probably think you are being stupid to buy that newest $800 graphic card or spend so much configuring your linux when you could just run windows or mac.

    6. Re:So? by sopssa · · Score: 4, Funny

      On a slightly related funny note, people really bitch about everything:

      "Civilization IV: Colonization Called 'Morally Disturbing'"

      I literally exclaimed "holy sh*t" out loud when I was reading an e-mail this morning listing the "Games for Windows" coming out this year and I came across this:

      “Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Colonization” (2K Games). In “Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Colonization,” players lead one of four European nations on a quest to conquer and rule the New World."

      But goddamit, am I the only one who think it's morally disturbing to make a game that celebrates COLONIZATION? It's ironic, actually, because just a few months ago a friend sent me a link to some information about the original "Colonization" game from 1994 (pictured left) that this one updates. At first, I thought it had to be a joke, but sure enough, it was real. However, I dismissed it as a relic from a time when neither developers nor players took videogames seriously as media with moral implications.

      But the idea that 2K and Firaxis and Sid Meier himself would make and release a game in the year 2008 that is not only about colonization, but celebrates it by having the player control the people doing the colonizing is truly mind boggling.

      Remember all the debate when Newsweek's N'Gai Croal said of the "Resident Evil 5" trailer with the African zombies that "Even if you are familiar with the franchise, if you are familiar with those images and their historical weight, you look at it and say, 'Man, that’s kind of messed up.'" Well, I agreed with N'Gai on that issue, but in my opinion, a game about colonization is about 100 times more messed up. "Throughout history, colonization regularly involved stealing, killing, abuse, deceit, and the exploitation or decimation of native people," he added. "Anybody with a shred of moral conscience who studies the history will be appalled. Whether it was British rule in India or slavery in Africa or Aboriginal children kidnapped and taken to Christian schools in Australia or the dislocation of Native Americans in the U.S., there were no positive colonization experiences."

      Fritz said he's not calling for a ban on the game, emphasizing that 2K has every right to release it for sale. "But I think personally they shouldn't release it, if it's at all what it appears to be based on the early marketing," he continued. "And I'm hoping a lot of people agree with me and will say so publicly."

      That's pretty ridiculous. Imagine if he knew there were nuclear weapons and slaves in Civ 4.

    7. Re:So? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      The scam part is not in buying tractors or trading gifts, but in the "offers" that give you FarmVille currency in exchange for handing over your cell phone number, to which monthly subscription charges begin accruing without your knowledge. This usually comes hidden in a survey or game of some sort in which you either hand over the cell phone number directly (in the case of some surveys) or after playing, in order to get a PIN to let you access results from the survey or game. There's clearly no need for a PIN, as the results could just be displayed on the computer without one—the scammer just wants the cell phone number.

    8. Re:So? by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      More importantly, as I recall Valve has in the past banned someone from playing online, which also locked them out of all their games. Not that I condone cheating online, but "nuke all the games they bought" is not the answer to that, and it really makes me uneasy that Valve would do such a thing.

      --
      "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
    9. Re:So? by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I suspect you are an I-hate-DRM-fanboy and 90% of your games most likely come with root-kits instead of DRM (that may even be the reason that 'your' CD-Key was distributed online (I hear that mega-warez-IV distributes your CD-Keys for you as a helpful gesture).

      Managing to sucker a store clerk into letting you exchange the game just screwed over the next purchaser and means you aren't even worthy of me bothering to disrespect you. You suck.

      No wonder you posted anonymously I would be ashamed if I was you too.

      Of course you might have just made all of this up in an attempt to be one of those hip, happening, anti-DRM zealots who defend their rabid piracy by invoking the word 'freedom' in some catch-all phrase that appeals to all of the other 12 year olds who think they are hackers because they can use Winzip.

      BTW I don't like DRM at all but Steam seems to be the lesser of the plethora(yes kids IT IS a biscuit) of various evils out there(no one mention Crysis: Warhead)

      --
      The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
  2. Too many "wrong" products... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Too many non productive "things" are becoming parts of a virtual economy. What is this? We are still living in RL, this isn't the Matrix and even if, the Matrix still has an RL "dynamic" that keeps it running.
    Real products (hard machines or what have you) need to be produced and sold to make an economy (and indeed humanity) better. Not virtual "stuff"....

    1. Re:Too many "wrong" products... by pmontra · · Score: 3, Insightful

      People buy many useless "real" things. Any of us does. If that useless stuff is good for the economy so are the useless "virtual" things of many games.

    2. Re:Too many "wrong" products... by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm not sure what is stupider: Your retarded post that shows extreme ignorance of economics and manufacturing (here's a hint: the US is still the world top manufacturing economy) or the fact that you screwed your racial epithet up. Gook is an epithet for Koreans, not Chinese. If you are going to be racist, you could at least try and get your terms straight.

  3. My rule of thumb. by Eric+S.+Smith · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I know nothing about this story, but I just always assume that anything built on Facebook is a scam, whether for money or ID theft. Go sell your virtual cheese elsewhere, vampire gangsters.

    --
    Mind the Gap
  4. Re:Aquarium Screensaver by Xelios · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It seems ridiculous to you and me, but to the millions of people who aren't as versed in technology as the average /. user maybe not. A few weeks ago I finally caved and opened a Facebook account (albeit with fake info), solely to keep in touch with friends back home after moving to Europe. Quite a few of them are into the Farmville thing (mostly the women), so I checked that out and my first thought was "Wow, people actually pay money to buy things in this game?". I never would, but some of my friends have. I asked them why, why pay money for such ridiculously simple [crappy] games? "Why not?" they said.

    I thought about it for a while, and I really didn't have a good answer. I've paid monthly fees to play MMOG's before. I pay money for a usenet account. To most of my friends spending money for these things would seem just as ridiculous. It's all a matter of perspective. For them, that tractor in Farmville is about as far as they've ventured into the gaming world outside of consoles, so why not spend a little money for it?

    Now the really scary thing happened when I first opened my Facebook account. All the info I gave was fake, including my name, except the email address. I entered a really old Hotmail address that I stopped using years ago. Since then it's been my disposable email address for anything that wouldn't accept 10mintemail addresses. From this one piece of real information Facebook built a list of probable friends, and 80% of them were people I know. How they managed to pull this off with a 6 year old Hotmail address is beyond me.

    --
    Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
  5. Re:tractors - ??? - real money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    In Farmville things either cost coins or FarmVille Dollars (FVD). Coins are easy to get: whenever you harvest something, you get coins. Coins are spent on the "mundane" things. Crops, some decorations, tractors, barns (red only), a small pond etc.

    FVD are difficult to get. You get one FVD every time you level. Or you buy them. FVD's are used to buy more exotic things: barns (in a variety of colors), a large pond, special purpose seasonal stuff, a different class of decorations, fuel for your tractor, etc.

    Now, you don't strictly need to have all these goodies, but as people play, they have the oppurtunity to get more stuff (of course), and you need to have a place for your stuff. The only way to get more room for your stuff is to expand your farm. Now, you can expand your farm by either having lots of friends that play FV, and then it only costs you coins, or you can buy a bigger lot, which costs FVD. If your the type of person that buys a lot of the specialty stuff, your already buying FVD so buying the larger farms isn't that big of a deal.

    Now, to specifically answer the question: Although tractors, seeders and harvesters are coin based purchases, the fuel refills are not. Now, you don't need to buy the fuel, you can wait a day and get a free refill, but if you have one of the larger farms, you will not be able to harvest, plow and seed all of it on the one refill. And since you have a very limited supply of FVD that you earn.... It becomes a habit that must be paid for.
     

  6. Re:Aquarium Screensaver by karnal · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'll elaborate on the AC that posted a reply to you. In my experience, Facebook does 3 things to find friends for you:

    1. Look through your address book and attempt to find people who match that are already in the system by e-mail (and sometimes name)
    2. Dig your e-mail address out of other people's address books that they've harvested from e-mail accounts. (this may or may not be a true statement, but judging by your comment...)
    3. Offer up "Friends of Friends" - chances are, you're friends with other people's friends, so they offer those too as suggested friends.

    --
    Karnal
  7. If the scams are a Red Herring, stop them. by voidstin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, if the revenue really comes from honestly entertained consumers trading money for an enjoyable experience, fine. Do that. Stop it with the text message scams and toolbar downloads..

    But, since $9.99/mo in hidden text message charges > $1 for a tractor, it seems to me that the tractor is the red herring, in order to get you to the far more profitable malware. But Zynga can easily prove me wrong by stopping these practices....

  8. Re:Techs versus "The Cloud". by nloop · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It sounds fantastic in theory, but once in the real world, Cloud Computing falls flat on its face.

    Try explaining that to the 11 million people who play FarmVille. Or to Google. Sure, you don't like cloud computing, I don't love it either, but falls on its face? Nah. Epically popular? Yup.

  9. Re:tractors - ??? - real money by RedWizzard · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Now, to specifically answer the question: Although tractors, seeders and harvesters are coin based purchases, the fuel refills are not. Now, you don't need to buy the fuel, you can wait a day and get a free refill, but if you have one of the larger farms, you will not be able to harvest, plow and seed all of it on the one refill. And since you have a very limited supply of FVD that you earn.... It becomes a habit that must be paid for.

    Except tractors, seeders and harvesters only reduce the number of clicks you have to do. They don't have any significant bearing on the game - you don't actually need them. Also a bit of planning can let you use them for free even with a large farm: just plant smaller plots with selected crops that will be due for harvest when you know you'll have fuel (this is actually just about the only scope for strategy in the whole game). So it's easy to avoid getting addicted to buying fuel if you don't want to.