I've been using Facebook for quite a while now. Before that was MySpace. I was never really into these social networking sites, but I couldn't escape them and submitted to joining these sites. MySpace was really for the younger demographic. It was a nice tool to email friends, look at photos, and post music and ideas.
Contrarily, the personal pages were overwhelmed by fancy templates, blaring songs that would initiate once you clicked on someone's profile, and convoluted information from one page to the next. No one profile was uniform. They were all tricked out by junky backgrounds and photo collages.
To remedy this, my close friends and I decided to switch over to Facebook for a more simple and mature networking site. All profiles were uniform, and it was so much more appealing. After a while, most people dumped their MySpace accounts and switched to Facebook. Nice. Then came all the applications on Facebook.
The first game application I remember is Mafia Wars. Now it is Farmville. I have buddies who tell me that they can't keep their girlfriends/wives attention because they are always on Farmville. I am sure it is more than just women playing this game. Word is that it is very addicting. I kept seeing Farmville pop up on my Facebook Newsfeed. I kept saying, "This is just another game, it will die out." Oh, how I was so wrong!
Farmville has over 72 million users worldwide. Yeah, I said it. That's not a misprint. 72 million. Keep in mind there are an estimated 304 million people in the United States as of July of 2008. Therefore, there are a lot of Farmville players out there.
Farmville is a simple application. FarmVille lets players build and customize their farms, starting out with a small parcel of land that they till and seed with a wide range of crops including berries, eggplant, wheat, soybeans, pumpkins and artichokes. Players can add pigs, cows and chickens and build barns, chicken coops, windmills and greenhouses.
Neighbors get rewarded for assisting their fellow neighbors. They get points for scaring away pests on a nearby farm, or feeding chickens on another players spread.
So what is the appeal to this phenomenon we call FarmVille? I think there is an element to it that is cute. Players think it is amazing how you can cultivate your own little farm and develop them out as your own. Obviously, people see this as a fun little escape. In the end, the desire for Farmville cash and coins drives them back to harvest their farms. If they neglect their farm and don't come back to harvest them, their crops will die. There is a competitive element going on here. It is ultimately about 'farm' status. I know it sounds hokey. But farm cash is like the new currency in cyberspace.
The appeal is addicting to urbanites as well as actual farmers. Deep down, I think it makes people realize and become aware of where their food comes from. In Farmville, there is never a drought, frost, floods, or diseased plants. It harbors a bit of a 'utopian' sense. I don't know. Who knows what the next phenomenon will be? Who would have thought it would be a game like FarmVille.
Source: eZine
