Games Like Farmville Getting Too Much Attention?

[The Simpleton1405241582 0]

World of Warcraft boasts of having more than 10 million subscribers, and Blizzard certainly works hard for the game to look good and offer new gameplay to the gamers. But one small company, called Zynga, are rolling in fame and money, with their games becoming huge hits and their game Farmville has over 70 million players, with a large part of that being active players. Zynga has been accused of merely copying games off other original designs (Farmville was inspired from Farm Town, Mafia Wars from Mob Wars, etc) and they added some attractive features to these "inspired" designs, and are now raking in the money as they offer tons of virtual stuff in exchange for paper money! I haven't played any other Zynga games other than Farmville so I'll talk about that for now.

 

I got pulled into Farmville by my friends, who just couldn't stop talking about it, and their news feeds were always filled with their farmville updates. Is this what the news feed is supposed to be used for?! Of course now there is an option to turn off farmville updates, but the nuisance hasn't stopped entirely. Ok so after playing farmville for a week I could see why it became so popular - there is lot of scope in that game for showing off. First it starts with how many coins you earned, after that it's how many neighbours you have, after that it's how big your farm is, and then it's your XP level, and finally it's about how many decorations you have on your farm. The game even offers a chance to take a screenshot of your farm and share it with friends. What was that for?! The concept of playing together with friends is fun but this game is highly addictive and is causing a change in habits and behaviour as well. None of my friends can afford to buy farmville cash so they're safe but the people who shell out loads of cash just to get a few more decorations show what damage this game can cause.

 

As of now Farmville has only 70 levels. For an active gamer, that shouldn't take more than a few weeks. What comes after that? Nothing. Zynga keeps bringing on "specials" with every season and players are supposed to collect these specials, most of which can only be bought with farmville cash. What joy is there in buying this virtual stuff, and truckfulls of it? If it's not about the money spent, its about the time spent. I have a few friends who use Facebook only to play farmville and other games. They seem to have forgotten that they're supposed to be on a social-networking site and not on an online-gaming site. I never get a response from these people on Facebook so I have to try and reach them in some other way. I once got to meet a friend who was playing farmville, and he had the biggest farm available, and had filled it with at least 500 plots. He had to click on all those plots to "plow" and then "plant". I observed that it took at least 30 minutes for the process to be complete!

 

World of Warcraft may be 10 times more addictive as players can do a lot of stuff on their own, but Farmville isn't less dangerous. I'm not saying people should stop playing it or anything (I'm still playing ) but that players should try to minimise their attachments to their farms. It's too easy to get lost in the virtual world; maybe it's time we learned to deal with the real world better.

[Illustrious 0]

I know right?!?! It is ridiculous how many game requests I am receiving on Facebook from my friends. My sister plays a game called PetVille and she plays for around 5 hours a day which I find absolutely ridiculous. In my opinion, these games are okay if you only spend around 5-10 minutes a day on them but any more time wasted on these games are wasted. The games are very repetitive and all you do in the game is plant, crop, buy seeds, sell crops, etc. and you repeat that throughout the entire game (this is an example from FarmVille, a lot of other games have the same concept)! What I find even more ridiculous is how people purchase items from these kinds of games with real money through micro purchases. It is good for the company (they are making tons of money), but I personally think that it is a waste of money.

As of now Farmville has only 70 levels. For an active gamer, that shouldn't take more than a few weeks.

Now, Zynga increased the level cap to 999. For anyone who actually reaches this level legit, I do not even know what I would say to this person. I would probably advise them to find a hobby in real life like music. This game requires a ton of waiting and waiting is really bad for your life/health. Every time you wait for a plant to grow, you are wasting valuable time that you will never get back. Like I said earlier, if I ever were to play this game, I would play every few days by buying plants/fish/crops/food/etc. (from whatever game you are playing) that would take 72+ hours to prepare so you would only have to check on the game every few days. I know some people who freak out in the middle of nowhere to go on the computer to check the status of the game that they are playing.

I would have to be a bit more lenient with World of Warcraft since it is an MMORPG and you actually do different things while you are in the game but the average time people spend on these games are at least two times more. I agree that it is extremely easy to get attached to games like this and if you do not put self limits or have someone force you off your computer/console then you will probably be lost in the world of pixels. I was once addicted to a game called Maplestory for 4 years and probably put at least 1500 hours into the game. There was a day where I played for 10 hours straight (excluding meals and bathroom breaks, I actually ate meals at my computer table). I am thankful that my parents started putting limits on my usage on the computer.

Spending too much time on games can affect your social skills. I noticed that people who play a lot of games have a lot of problems communicating with other people than those who spend time going out with friends. It is also a lot more healthier and fun to spend time with friends and family than with pixels. It is true that you chat on computer games but it is nothing like talking verbally with your mouth.

Games are the future of kids and will take over their minds very soon (in fact, you can already notice the large fraction of people already sucked in). Soon, there will be games in 3D (talk about getting "into" the game). As years pass by, teen's grammar and writing skills are dropping significantly as the people they chat with have bad spelling and grammar. They see these words misspelled all of the time and then they tend to start misspelling the words.

[Ahsaniqbalkmc 0]

When I first played the game I was not very happy with the gameplay. I wondered why so many people play a game which is not very interesting. I mean all you can do is plant seeds and wait for them to grow. I went up to level 10 and there was no fun at all. At the same time I was playing farmville, I also used to play another game called millionaire city made by digital chocolate. I used to spend a lot of time on this game and I really liked it. It was much better than farmville but it still got very less numbe of players.One of the reasons that farmville has so many members is that there has been so much word spreading about it. I mean if a friend of you talks to you about a game which is wonderful and full of fun and amazing and very simple to learn, you got to check it out. Even if you don't like it you will stay for quite a time to check that why people love this game so much. There must be something in it that makes it so loved by the people. This is one of the main reasons why some games get so much traffic instead of others, no matter which one is better in terms of game play.More and more our kids are getting involved in games, more and more they are leaving behind some very important tasks. If the games which are educational can be made more ineresting, then probably this thing will not be of concern.

[Illustrious 0]

One of the reasons that farmville has so many members is that there has been so much word spreading about it. I mean if a friend of you talks to you about a game which is wonderful and full of fun and amazing and very simple to learn, you got to check it out.

Another one of the reasons why FarmVille has so many members is because of the fact that the games prompt you to send invitations to everyone on your friend's list. They also spam people's walls if you allow the application to do so. On facebook, if you ever see lots of application requests requesting you to participate in games, this is the main technique companies like Zynga use to promote their games on facebook.