

FarmVille: who knew boredom could be a cash crop? - envitar
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/nov/11/game-theory-farmville-facebook

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chris100
Interesting that while the article mentions TechCrunch's crusade, it never
mentions the problematic aspect, which are the scammy offers. The article only
mentions buying virtual goods as a problem. I'd say scamming is worse.

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dabent
That was my take as well. If someone wants to pay cash to play a game, even
one I might think is silly, it's none of my business. What TC was after were
misleading offers that can end up costing players a lot.

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old-gregg
I see FarmVille is an ultimate embarrassment for Flash as a "platform" for
anything: an insanely powerful Core Duo 2 falls victim to Adobe's genius: the
PC turns into a buzzing oven essentially displaying a nearly static image with
some minimal 80-s style animations here and there.

I can literally hear when my wife launches it from anywhere in the house:
those tiny little laptop fans just scream "farmville-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e". Oh,
and then I can hear her: "where is the power cord?", in about 45 minutes.

Who knew that virtual agriculture could be so CPU intensive. :)

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misuba
From the article: "In fact, FarmVille isn't really a game at all. It's an
online hobby, and has far more in common with knitting or gardening than a
first-person shooter."

It has this mostly in common with The Sims. Most people don't want to play
games. (Make something people want.)

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arien
It's actually a pretty cute game, and addicting if you're into sim games.
Micropayments for games are nothing new, though, and thankfully optional
(although always tempting).

You can snap out of the addiction though, if you stop for a minute and count
how many clicks are required every time you have to harvest - plow - plant a
big sized field in a 20x20 (or more) farm. RSI, anyone?

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pyman
Mafia War: 30 millona daily active users in Facebook. Jelous? I bet you are!
They are anti-valley BS, and I respect that.

