Farmville, or how I learned to stop worrying and love Zynga.
There was a time I was obsessed with Farmville. If I didn’t harvest my crops on the hour, then plow my fields, then plant new crops for harvest in another 24 hours, I was not a happy man.
This insane loyalty makes Farmville genius. The players are people who play the game at least once daily, if not several times in one day. Additionally, they may play other Zynga games daily, like YoVille, FishVille, PetVille, or MafiaVille Wars.
Think of the cash Zynga must swim in just from advertising on these games, not counting the money people burn changing their real money into Farmville Cash. Zyng’s genius is sickening. Get people obsessed with playing flash games with lots of surrounding advertising, and Zynga watches the money roll in.
What’s craziest is how Zynga says these games are social. If sitting and clicking virtual plants on a virtual farm for hours is social, I don’t want to know what you call Xbox Live. Farmville created a second network of people on Facebook I had to pester constantly for crap to help my virtual farm. Before Farmville, I wondered who my real friends were, now I now it’s people who will fertilize my crops and send me different colored fencing.
Zynga, I, The Anti-Social Media, salute you. By having people sit in the dark at the computer and call it farming with their friends, you have found a way to print money. I can only dream of being as profitable and evil as you.
Anti-Social Media