“Facebook Gamers Are Frequent Players”

Grace Konopka

I am an ex Farmville addict. I used to shamelessly check my Farmville at least ten times a day to check on plants, fertilize my friends farms, and help cultivate my fake farm. Several of my friends and roommates played Farmville so we could talk about Farmville, and at a low point several of us reenacted digging motions to show off our Farmville dance. I am not proud of how often I used this Facebook game, but it happened. A simple game using internet personas managed to capture and hold the attention of mass amounts of Facebook users.

If Facebook ends up going public it is possible that it has a value of $34 Billion according to Jay Ritter. This is more than Google and Ebay’s respected values. The company Zynga is profiting from the mass amount of money available in the Facebook market. Zynga is said to generate more than $450 million this year. About 90% of Farmville’s fans return to check their farms at least once a day. The company has managed to start selling virtual goods that help capture the attention of their users. The sale of virtual goods has shown that the more time and money people are spending on their virtual farms the more likely they are to keep up with their investment over time. Clearly, Zynga has figured out a way to get a piece of the lucrative Facebook pie. Online games, including Farmville, have been rising in popularity, and statistics are showing that people are spending more time on online games than on their email accounts.

Farmville has further advanced previous games where people created their own Avatars. Games like the Sims, and Second Life used the ideas of creating computer characters and then being able to give them their own virtual lives. The game player controlled everything from clothing choices to their character’s homes. Farmville is not the first company to give the ability to use your Sims in the virtual world. Farmville has taken this concept a step further and managed to give users the ability to interact with their Facebook friends. Farmville has given users the ability to help their friends’ farms out as well as ask friends to help their own farms. It gives every “farmer” the ability to add friends, and with these friends people can talk about Farmville in everyday life. People talking about Farmville leads to more people hearing about the game and then looking into it with their own Facebook accounts.

I believe that Farmville is the future of all gaming. I would not consider myself a “gamer” like many other teenagers would, and I still played Farmville. This game has managed to capture the attention of myself as well as many other people all over the world. My Farmville friends ranged from my 15 year old sister to my 45 year old aunt. This game is not biased to anyone, all you need is a Facebook account. Farmville will end up riding along with this Facebook craze for a very long time.


http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2010/tc20100621_793158.htm
"Facebook Gamers are Frequent Players"

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2010/tc2010081_994774.htm
"Social Networking and Games Leap in Web Use"

http://feedroom.businessweek.com/index.jsp?fr_story=0770174b3e116bb7537aa6f74e88b68aed2604c8
"Facebook's $34 Billion Valuation" Here is a link to the video that I used.