Mod 3.2 Writing Task - Topic Introduction
DOWN ON THE (VIRTUAL) FARM
Jil Wrinkle, a 40-year-old medical transcriber in the Philippines, sleeps with his laptop next to his bed. Every night for the past two weeks Jil has set his alarm for 1:30 a.m., when he wakes up, rolls over and harvest his blueberries. He'll continue to harvest every four hours, night and day ..."WHY" you may ask? Because like millions of others worldwide, he's a FarmVille addict!
FarmVille, the Facebook application (not to be confused with Farmville, North Carolina!) is a web phenomonen – with 69 million monthly active users it's the largest Facebook application and the fastest growing social game on the internet. Every single day 22 million players log in. But what makes FarmVille so addictive? According to Mark Newheiser, a blogger on the Gamasutra website, it's because "Farmville fulfils the classic elements of addictive behavior: it rewards you for playing it by letting you have the sense of advancing in the game...and it punishes you for going too long without playing."
The game starts off simply enough: You are given land and seeds that can be planted, harvested and sold for online coins. The coins you earn can then be used to buy buildings, seeds and animals for your farm. The more "neighbours" you add (selected from your Facebook friends) means the bigger you can expand your farm.
But FarmVille is not just about fun and games; it's also a serious business. Direct purchases of virtual currency and goods will earn Zynga, the game's developers, a cool 100 million dollars this year. Last month, Zynga received $180 million in funding from Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian Investment company. This was in addition to the $200 million they received from the same company in May 2009.
As well as the real dollars that FarmVille attracts, there's also another currency at play - FarmVille cash - players earn coins each time they harvest their crops, or gain another level in the game. Adam Nash, a FarmVille player (and also a Vice President at LinkedIn!) has written blogs on the personal economics of FarmVille, calculating which crops players need to grow to earn the most coins, and then what those coins are equivalent to in the "real world". The last word, however, goes to Abhi Kumar, Zynga's FarmVille product manager, who says that "it is not about the coins players may earn on their farm - the value is the fun and enjoyment from the time spent playing".
FarmVille logo and picture from: http://www.smugbox.com/Facebook-Farmville-Cheats-Codes/ViewContent?id=582
REFERENCES
Dybwad, B (2009) Facebook Slams Twitter: FarmVille is Bigger Than You. Retrieved 1st January, 2010 from http://mashable.com/2009/12/02/farmville-bigger-than-twitter/
FarmVille Freak (2009) Farmville in News Retrieved 20th December, 2009 from
FarmVille Freak (2009) How to get FarmVille Cash. Retrieved 20th December, 2009 from
Harvey, M (2009) Online FarmVille game ploughs new fields of revenue. Retrieved
20th December 2009 from http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article688815
Higginbotham, S (2009) Facebooks 200m cash cushion may be a lifeline Retrieved 31st December 2009 from
Kumar, A http://www.linkedin.com/in/akumar2
Malik, O (2009) Will Zynga Use $180M Funding for Shopping? Retrieved 1st January, 2010 from
Miller C & Stone B (2009) Virtual Goods start bringing Real Paydays Retrieved 31st December 2009 from
Nash, A (2009) The Personal Economics of Farmville, Part 2 « Psychohistory Retrieved 31st December 2009 from
Newheiser, M (2009). “Farmville, Social Gaming, and Addiction”, Retrieved 16/12/09 from:
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MarkNewheiser/20091204/3733/Farmville_Social_Gaming_and_Addiction.php
Quenqua, D (2009) To Harvest Squash, Click Here Retrieved 1st January 2010 from
Welcome to the Town of Farmville, North Carolina [website]. Retrieved 10th January, 2010 from
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