Get Your Crappy Facebook Games Out of My Newsfeed

Facebook Games Mindless Clicking - The Anti-Social MediaThe past few weeks, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend of unwanted updates in my Facebook newsfeed:

  • James and three other friends played Farmville.
  • Amy and two friends are playing Word with Friends
  • Bob is playing Give Me Back My Life.

Didn’t we already go through this in 2009?

Facebook is slowly experimenting with bringing games back into the newsfeed. Bastards.

Those updates aren’t my friends telling me how awesome a game is. That’s Facebook trying to lure me to spend more time on Facebook. I’m sure half of my friends don’t even know their playtime is being corrupted into crappy advertisements.

Games used to be so entertaining and exciting that you had to tell people about them. They brought so much joy into your life, that if you didn’t let someone else share that joy, you were doing a disservice to the human race.

Real game makers still make games like this. I read about those games in messages from my friends. I see them when I go to a party. I hear about them over the phone, or in a conversation at lunch.

Unless I’m talking about social media with a bunch of social media nerds, I don’t hear about Facebook games. Why? Facebook games aren’t good. Facebook games replace the ideas of fun and entertainment with fear of missing out.

And is that what we really want from our games? A vague threat that serves as entertainment? The concept of playing together when other people aren’t even in the same room?

Facebook - stop rewarding games that aren’t fun. Provide a platform so people can make exciting and entertaining games that are compelling enough to draw people in without corrupting their playtime.

Get these meaningless updates out of my newsfeed. I’ve got important cat pictures I need to be looking at.

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7 Responses to “Get Your Crappy Facebook Games Out of My Newsfeed”

  1. Camilo Olea January 3, 2012 at 3:34 pm #

    Dear Facebook: Please do as Jay says. Kthxbye.

    • Jay January 3, 2012 at 3:40 pm #

      I wish.

  2. Drilling Billy January 4, 2012 at 2:18 am #

    Not to mention the constant annoying messages when someone wants to ad my birthday to their MyCalender.

    • Jay January 4, 2012 at 4:47 pm #

      That sounds like a terrible app. Any decent app would just ask for permission to your friends’ birthdays to begin with.

  3. soxyfleming January 17, 2012 at 7:00 am #

    i don’t want to read about facebook games either. I need the time for uploading cat pictures.

  4. Katrine February 19, 2012 at 6:42 pm #

    I agree, cat pictures are much more important. Farmville is a terrible name for a game, I never even wanted to know what it is. Another reason why I avoid logging in to facebook at all.

  5. Charles March 21, 2012 at 9:37 am #

    I’ve been using FB Purity for years now. It’s a script that offers a variety of options that should be native to FB but aren’t. http://www.fbpurity.com/

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