Farmville is a real- time game mostly played through a facebook account. It is one of the top played game on facebook alongside other games of Zynga- its creator. Base on its name Farmville, the game is a virtual farm where a player manages the farm through plowing, planting, watering and harvesting the crops. The crops can sold through a virtual market.
20% of Facebook users play Farmville. Currently the game is being considered still in its BETA stage and the users considered as “testers”. Developers still see the possibility of a bug in the future. The game is a clone of another Facebook game, Farmtown.
At the beginning of the game, players will have to customize their own avatars. Eggplant seeds and six plots are made usable for the beginners to start the game. The game revolves around the “market “ where seeds, trees, animals, buildings, decorations, vehicles and more land can be purchased using a virtual money called “farm coins”. The player can earn coins by selling the crops they have harvested from their own farm. The player can also earn experience points upon doing farm activities. Most items can be bought by farm coins and special items can be bought by farm cash (a player can get farm cash once they completed special offers). As the game, progress, difficulty in increasing cash, experience points and coins also increases.
Different farmville offers to get cash triggered controversies. Some of the gamer have been offered with virtual cash if they comply with an advertising offer which turned out to be a scam. For example, offers included taking an I.Q. test or bogus surveys when activated, it instantly subscribe the user to an unwanted service that charges through the telephone bill. Zynga CEO Mark Pincus stated in a video released in November 9, 2009 “I did every horrible thing in the book too, just to get revenues right away. I mean we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this Zwinky toolbar which was like, I don’t know, I downloaded it once and couldn’t get rid of it”.
Players playing the game through facebook itself can still see offers as of April 2010.
Although much unfavorable judgment farmville has gone through, it still remained as one of Facebook’s top virtual game. Like other virtual games and applications, the number of players has declined but is still being played by people of all ages.
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