I don’t know Tak Fung from Adam, but though a series of re-tweets (and by now far out of an original context that appears to have been part of a longer discussion) this suggestion of his wound up in my Twitter feed:
the argument against farmville is similar to argument against videogames in general by people who dont play games
eg waste of time, better things to do, etc
Discussions about Farmville, Zynga, et al. have become vastly more interesting to me in the past few weeks as I’ve been working on Ecotopia with the fine team at Talkie.
It seems to me that the chief argument against Farmville and the rest is different than the argument against video games in general. I think it’s more like the argument against Amway: It’s a vaguely slimy exploit of the participants’ real-world social connections for the profit of a third party.
I’ve had an article, “Cultivated Play: Farmville,” bookmarked for a Gameplaywright post for months now. It discusses this issue at great length, and insightfully.
The secret to Farmville’s popularity is neither gameplay nor aesthetics. Farmville is popular because in [sic] entangles users in a web of social obligations.
My kingdom for a Farmville preference setting to the effect of, “Never spam my friends who have not opted in to this game’s announcements.” But even though this would be the most sensible option imaginable for such a game to include if Farmville were just like video games in general, it destroys the Amway business model. Farmville is simply not like video games in general.
My five-year-old son, for what it’s worth, loves Farmville. He’s always excited to do my tedious Farmville busywork for me. And I don’t hate either the game or the genre. But I think more players would benefit from being completely mindful that one of the currencies they’re spending to play this free (“free”) game is the patience and goodwill of their social web.
So I feel almost exactly as you do.
However, I think that part of it is because I’m just old enough that I’m a net immigrant. I don’t fully fit in nor always understand the way that online social networks in the Farmville/Facebook model actually work.
I mean, I think I do, but then I don’t.
For example, I suspect that in a social network where minor spam and announcements from games are something everyone does and does a lot, that getting such spam and announcements from your social web is not taxing the patience of your web. Or at least, is less so than it would be in traditional social dynamics.
So part of the problem here is less that Farmville is a parasite on the social network, and more that it requires and different way of understanding social ties than many of us have.
I don’t play Farmville anymore, but I played it a good deal when I was working on a specific piece of the WoD MMO. In particular, I believe that Farmville is more toy than game, but that its key strength is getting the positive feedback loop right. When you fertilize my crops, you get experience points and I get crops that are more valuable at sale time. Win for you and win for me. That “feel good,” whether it’s in that specific example or in the parallel play of the (semi-) social game model are, IMO, its longevity and success. Farmville always pats you on the head for playing it.