Cow Clicker Boils Down Facebook Games

mjn writes "Game designer and academic Ian Bogost announces Cow Clicker, a Facebook game implementing the mechanics of the Facebook-games genre stripped to their core. You get a cow, which you can click on every six hours. You earn additional clicks if your friends in your pasture also click. You can buy premium cows with 'mooney,' and also use your mooney to buy more clicks. You can buy mooney with real dollars, or earn some free bonus mooney if you spam up your feed with Cow Clicker activity. A satire of Facebook games, but actually as genuine a game as the non-satirical games are. And people actually play it, perhaps confirming Bogost's view that the genre of games is largely just 'brain hacks that exploit human psychology in order to make money,' which continue to work even when the users are openly told what's going on."

Comments

You found a lonely lost cow

[mark72005]

Click to continue

Re:You found a lonely lost cow

[nomorecwrd]

click to here continue reading

Re:You found a lonely lost cow

[Dekker3D]

I'll write a macro to click it for me so I don't have to read!

Strange Game

[Mr_Blank]

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?"

Re:Strange Game

[melikamp]

In the game of chess, you can never let your adversary see your pieces

-Zapp Brannigan

Re:Strange Game

[dangitman]

In the game of chess, you can never let your adversary see your pieces

And if we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate.

Re:Strange Game

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Facebook account just so people don't think I've died or been mangled in some kind of accident. I hardly spend any time on FB at all, which leaves plenty of time to emit smugness about it on Slashdot.

Sign me up.

[Spazntwich]

I am predicting at least one defriending as I rub this piece of satire in some choice faces.

I don't think one can truly appreciate the evil addictive nature of those games until he has watched a loved one lose hours in a catatonic trance of digital fertilizing.

Wait.

Maybe there's something to her arguments about porn?

Cult of the dead cow

[joe_cot]

If you're going to make a viral app as a satire of other apps, you should prepare your site to at least stand one slashdotting.

Re:Prior Art

[nschubach]

Even better: Posting comments going for a "Funny" mod which doesn't mean anything for your Karma... but doing it anyway. ;)

Re:Guess I haven't played enough FB games

[commodore64_love]

>>>RPG game?

Role Playing Genre game.

See? Wouldn't I make a great politician? I can backpeddle and bullshit with the best of 'em. ;-) Maybe I'll check-out this Cow Clicker game - see how many of my friends I can dupe into joining it.

Re:Exploiting?

[Red Flayer]

Wait... you get money for your posts?

What? You don't?

Every month I get a credit to my Paypal account, it's usually $50-100 . I think I get around $1 per +5 post, and I get like $0.25 per mod point I spend on behalf of Microsoft. I get the statement that itemizes the payment in my email each month, but I never bother to read it.

Dude, if you're posting here and not getting paid, you're really wasting your time. Send me your contact info via email at slashdot_shill_127@microsoft.com, I'll sign you up for the program -- I think I get a $25 referral bonus if you maintain high karma and moderate weekly for six months.