Media Culture 2 on 21 April 2010

By Thao Uyen Truong – s3242198

1. Overview

2. The popularity of Farmville

3. The Interaction between Farmville , Facebook and Community

4. Why Farmville is the future social gaming?

5. Conclusion

6. References

Farmville is a real-time farm simulation game application on social networks such as Facebook and My Space.

Farmville released in June 2009 on Facebook and is developed by Zynga– an online game company

Gameplay: players grow their own virtual farms by: designing and building their farms

planting and harvesting virtual seeds and fruit trees

purchasing buildings and farming accessories

purchasing and raising livestock

Farmville is a clone of Farm Town but more successful than Farm Town

According to an online article by The Mashable (a social media guide), Farmville has become the most popular game application on Facebook with 26.5 millions daily active players and 69.2 millions monthly active users by the end of 2009 Bigger than social network Twitter (18 millions)

FarmVille on Facebook won Social Networking Game of the Year Award 2009 : 81 millions monthly active players

FarmVille has achieved over 82.4 million active users and over 23.8 million fans in April 2010 (according to Appdata web).

Total FarmVille players are over 20% of the users of Facebook and over 1% of the population of the world in April 2010. ( Wikipedia)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8MpkVY9L-Q

Social Network Facebook

Social Network

Community

Social Game Farmville

Real Life Analogy: Facebook is a shopping centre, Farmville is an entertainment shop and Community as customers .

Farmville leverages the social networking aspects of Facebook

Zynga pays Facebook millions of dollars every year for marketing Farmville on their site

Farmville makes money from marketing for other companies and selling virtual farming accessories/goods to players

Community get virtual money from growing and harvesting farms, or from real currency (Credit card/ PayPal) to buy virtual goods, to build bigger farms, and to advance their game level.

Example: "For me it's just relaxing and fun. I don't have to think hard about it, and I can do it while watching TV," Lauren Kohn, 37, a mother of three in San Jose said . To buy virtual goods she spent over $100 since first-time she played four months ago.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2009/10/26/farmville-gamemaker-zynga-sees-dollar-signs/

Farmville developers use the profit to design more game levels, new goods and new ideas to retain players interest.

To attract players, Farmville creates three way of measuring progress: experiences points, achievements and Co-op farming.

Social motivation and behavior; Facebook is a bridge for social media, social networks and business.

Farmville is a free online application available on social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace.

Farmville ranks among the top five games played daily on Facebook.

Players interact with each other through gameplay;

helping each other with their farming

offering each other gifts (e.g. Experience Points, Seeds, Livestock…etc.)

sharing their experiences and fun in Farmville (e.g. IM, Blog, Personal Gameplay Updates on Facebook)

Farmville has become one of the most popular online social games

Farmville is easy, fun, and attracts players of different age

Farmville is a future social game

Disadvantages:

Time consuming

Can take you away from your reality life

Can cost real money

Example: two weeks ago , a 12 years old UK boy spent £ 905 in Farmville including: about £288 of his own savings, and £625 was billed to his horrified mother’s credit card.

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8MpkVY9L-Q

2. http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2009/10/26/farmville-gamemaker-zynga-sees-dollar-signs/

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FarmVille

4. http://www.customer-experience-labs.com/2010/02/24/understanding-facebook-the-farmville-phenomenon-and-the-future-of-social-gaming/

5. http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/06/zynga-farmville/

6. http://www.techiteasy.org/2010/02/05/farmville-the-rpg/

7. http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2009/07/15/with-farmville-zynga-joins-the-facebook-farming-fray/

8. http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/07/15/farmville-is-the-fastest-growing-app-on-facebook-at-over-3-million-new-users-this-week/

9. http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/kate-rockwood/bizzy-body/why-are-we-obsessed-online-farming?partner=rss

10. http://mashable.com/2010/03/30/farmville-addiction/

11. http://www.techiteasy.org/2010/01/12/thoughts-on-farmville-an-addictive-but-flawed-facebook-game-2/

12. http://www.appdata.com/facebook/apps/index/id/102452128776