The FarmVille Diaries

 FarmVille, the Facebook game, is getting a lot of notice lately (see my previous posts here and here). Well, 85 million players do attract considerable attention. I'm not on Facebook, and I haven't played the game, but here's an interesting article about it: The FarmVille Diaries, "a bleak and chilling record of one woman's spiralling descent into FarmVille addiction." (As you'll see, that's very tongue-in-cheek. It's actually a funny, and rather clever, article.)

FarmVille really doesn't seem like much of a game, and Ellie Gibson agrees, at least at first. But the key is that it's a Facebook game.

So far I haven't been too impressed by FarmVille. It just seems like a Facebook version of a lot of games I've played before. But today I realised I've been missing the point - the key word there is "Facebook".

Sounds stupid I know, but until now I didn't bother checking how many of my Facebook friends might be playing the game. Turns out there are around a dozen. Now I understand that interacting with them and their farms is key to the success of your own. For example, fertilising someone's crops earns you extra XP. Feeding their chickens might get you an egg containing your very own birdie. 

And I suspect that the simplicity of the game helps attract people who have never played a computer game before.

Having Neighbours is like having a Friends list within FarmVille. You need a certain number of them to get access to certain items. Even after I'd sent Neighbour requests to all the FarmVille players, I still didn't have enough to qualify for a Dairy Farm.

I asked my friend Kim, who doesn't currently play, to join the game. She was reluctant but agreed after I explained it'll only take a few minutes to sign up, and she doesn't have to keep playing the game once she's accepted my Neighbour invitation. ...

I have become a drug pusher. 

Like Facebook itself, this is all about social networking.

With games like Harvest Moon, no one cares how your farm's doing except you. You might tell everyone in the pub you've got all the gold medals in Farm Frenzy, but they won't care. I know from experience that most people in the pub won't care how many yellow ribbons you've got in FarmVille either, but one or two might, and then you can talk to them about it until everyone else threatens to switch tables.

The social networking aspect takes the reward mechanic which makes farming games so satisfying and throws in the ability to show off. You get the same feeling of power and control as with a real-time strategy game, but everyone can see how you wield that power, and instead of launching air strikes you get to breed pink cows. ...

Then there are the clever tricks Zynga has built into the game. The brilliantly designed mechanics which don't just keep you playing, but get you to get other people to keep playing. I've got Kim, Miriam and Johnny to either start playing FarmVille or go back to playing on a regular basis. If each of those people got three people to play, and each of those people got three people to play, and each of those people... Well, you'd be at 85 million in no time.

Gamers like to talk about computer games, but few people want to listen, except for other gamers. And if your friends are playing a game, you're more likely to play it, too. FarmVille really doesn't sound like much of a game, not compared to the games I enjoy. But it takes advantage of clever psychological tricks on a social networking site, and now it's the new model for commercial success.