Social Games though the Lens of Farmville

April 21, 2010 12:16 am Sir Haxington Game Development, Gaming

Don’t worry, I’ll finish my GDC stories soon enough.

But for now, I want to talk about “Social Gaming.” I find the phenomenon fascinating, especially since GDC was so heavily focused on the topic. Half the talks I went to involved social gaming talks and of course how much money they are making. And how large their audiences are. And how much bigger they will be in the future.

Hard to ignore. So, I started playing Farmville. I’ve been playing it for over a month now. I had stopped playing Mafia Wars a while back after getting my mother of all people hooked on it, so I figured it’d basically be the same deal.

Much to my surprise, it wasn’t. Farmville feels more SimCity than flash game. Cute graphics, sense of progression and economy, whats not to like?

To be honest, surprisingly little. It’s a cute, harmless game. However, there is a catch, just like Mafia Wars. You get more out of the game by playing with others, even if in a very loose fashion. Having “neighbors” (which are real life people you know) allows you to unlock larger farms, which allow more crops to be grown, which earns you more money to buy big houses for example.

My mother found out I was playing and suddenly I’m getting friends requests on Facebook from her friends so I can be their neighbor on Farmville.  I only Facebook people I’ve met in real life so this was a shock to me. I politely declined, thinking I wouldn’t be playing for long anyway.

Starting out is pretty straight forward. You start with a small farm, you get some land, you plant some crops. Soon you find there are two type of economy. One which is represented by an icon that looks like real life cash, another that looks like gold pieces from any other video game. One you get in much smaller numbers and buys you awesome things, one you get in much larger quantities for day to day tasks and keeps the game moving. One gets you things like sweet barns, cool pets, another gets you seeds for more crops.

Except, to earn the in-game represented cash, you must pay for it with real life cash. Well, you a get a few bucks for just playing, but so few you can’t buy much with it. So, its obvious what they are trying to do. Create demand (awesome things you want to buy you can’t have other wise or only after a very long time, making them desirable) then they give you the option to pay real life money for it for it. And they give you enough of the virtual dollars to get you hooked. Its like “Here’s $5, spend it on whatever you want! But you’ll never get another penny from us.”

I don’t care that much about my farm or this game so I don’t buy into these games personally. But a lot of people do. My sister bought items in Mafia Wars, and she doesn’t play any other video games, as far as I know.

In any event, I continued playing Farmville anyway. I got to a point where I started adding neighbors that were people in my Facebook friends list what were also playing Farmville playing in order to make my game better. Turns out, if you have neighbors, they will fertilize your virtual crops. And you can do the same for them. Which earns you more gold coins and experience. Which opens up new levels that allows you to buy more stuff for your farm. Which is easier to buy if you spend more real money.

So, is Farmville fun? I talked about this with my Mom who plays tons of these games and we decided, “Not really.” But, Farmville is rewarding, which is different. The progression system and checking in on the little system you’ve created is fun. And there’s risk involved. If you don’t tend to the crops, they wither and die, which costs money. So, the fear of losing money and crops keeps me playing. Yes, I play Farmville out of fear, in a way.

There are some fun mechanics, like gifting. I love getting gifts in games and giving gifts to people. But, building an entire barn from individual brick and boards though gifting takes forever. And its kinda annoying. Which is why Farmville lets you spend real money to get virtual cash so you can buy those parts and shortcut gifting.

How much longer will I play it? Not much. I play a lot of other games so this doesn’t really satisfy my gaming needs. To me, it feels more like a time sink. However, its very easy to see why people who are more casual about games would play these types of games all the time. And since that audience is not going to spend money on the console games of the world, someone found a way to monetize their gameplay. I can’t say I would fault those companies, I don’t feel like Farmville or social games in general are abusive or problematic. However, I probably wouldn’t let my non-existent kids play them though only because of the money it might cost me if they really got into it.

Why would I write about this? Some people at GDC were talking about social games like the sky was falling and it was the end of the gaming world. They’d be wrong, but I could see why they were freaking out, especially considering how much money they are making, how large their audiences are and what the mechanics and economies in these types of games make people do.