Yes, this is about Farmville. We’ll get to it later. This past week I was trapped in the house due to a freak winter storm that our State was not ready to handle. I was going stir crazy. Twitter was no fun; everyone was complaining about snow/ice. And I had run out fresh content on the intertubes.
So I decided to something wild and crazy. Play Farmville. If you know me you’re going, WTF?! But rest assured this was not for entertainment purposes alone. I wanted to see what attracted so many players to the game. What made Zynga more profitable than Facebook this year.
As I began playing, the game reminded me of Warcraft. No not WOW, but the original game. Very task based and directed at first and then it gave you the freedom to what ever you wanted within the game once you started leveling up.
Lest go over basic gameplay first. The soundtrack is a simple melodic tune that comes to life when you complete simple tasks. Think Vegas slot machines. The game lulls you into playing and cashing in to hear that sweet cha-ching sound. But you can only hear that sound so often with out neighbors. In order to level up, you must get neighbors, your facebook friends to play the game. Brilliant.
This creates a swarm of activity on your farm, that your resources (energy and cash) can’t keep up with. Zynga has masterfully partnered with other business to give you game cash if you sign up a particular service or product. Kind of like a squeeze page if you will.
I was wondering what happened to them on the net. Zynga cornered the market and moved it to Facebook. I don’t know if I should be happy that a lot of that gunk has been cleared from the tubes or upset that these practices still exist on a different level.