Editor's note: Meghan dons her reporter's hat to explore what real-life farmers and Farmville farmers have in common. -Brett
I love farmers markets. I'm always amazed that these friendly clusters of tents have found a place in an age of mega-marts and wholesale stores. Walking past the colorful vegetables, I feel like I’m worlds away from from the trappings of technology. I’m in a space I know nothing about.
And yet, being the video-game nerd that I am, I can't help but think of Farmville, Zynga’s insanely popular “casual” farming simulator, whenever I go to a market. I wonder: What do the real farmers here and the virtual farmers on Facebook have in common?
I decided to find out. I asked the farmers at the North Union Farmers Market in Westlake, Ohio, how they got into farming. I asked Farmvillers how they got into Farmville. What follows are common tales of happy accidents, exploring new pursuits, and hobbies that have taken on lives of their own.
The North Union Farmers Market is a little bustling bubble of produce surrounded by a Trader Joe’s, a First Watch cafe, and a Chipotle crowned by a Gold’s Gym. The vendors at the farmers market are passionate about what they do, whether it's making hot sauces or selling full-grown vegetables and baked goods. Some of them farm for a living, some farm for fun.
My video-game intuition (and the giant Power-Up mushroom painted on the tent) leads me first to Wendy Wiandt’s Killbuck Valley Mushrooms stand. Wendy and her husband started selling mushrooms after they realized they didn't enjoy the office setting of their respective careers as a medical technologist and an engineer. They currently grow mushrooms in two barns, and on sawdust and natural logs spread out over 100 acres of land.
“We hunted wild mushrooms as a hobby, and then we started reading about how you could grow your own,” Wendy explains. “So we slowly got into it, and we’ve been doing this full-time for 10 years.”
Karen Contant of Ridgebridge Farm in Avon, Ohio, sells an impressive spread of veggies, with heirloom vegetables — non-hybridized, “old fashioned” vegetables — as her focus.
Karen grew up on a farm with her family, where she also kept show horses. When she graduated from college, she bought a farm and began growing vegetables.
Turning that farm into a business came easily for her. “I owned an outdoor store for 20 years," Karen says. "So I had this wired before I started and I didn’t have a big learning curve in terms of the merchandising and making the product. All that that was a no-brainer for me.”
Karen is the only farmer I speak to at the market who is familiar with Farmville.
"I read Facebook, and all of these people are like, 'I found some mystery eggs,' and I’m like, 'I found some of my own in my chickens! You Facebook people need to get off Facebook and onto the farm!'" Karen laughs. “That’s what I’m always saying to people. I mean, I live in Farmville! I don’t have time to do that. That’s the last thing I’d be playing.”
Karen recommends that people interested in farming try their hand at an apprenticeship first. The hours, seasonality, and reliance on weather can be a brutal combination for new farmers, especially under the pressure of supporting yourself on farming’s sometimes fickle income.
“My advice would be to have another income," Karen says. "I don’t want to scare anybody, but you better know what you’re in for.”
Most Farmville players don’t have a real-life interest in farming. To get an idea of what draws players to the game, then, I asked the Zynga forums why they played Farmville.
Some of the respondents said they have or would like a small garden, but most play Farmville for the same elementary reason anyone plays games: fun. Farmvillers find enjoyment in activities like designing, growing, achieving in-game goals, working with online neighbors, and reconnecting with old friends.
A user named Endothermos put it rather poetically: “Farmville appeals to my native Midwestern roots a bit, though it's not like real farming… It's also the placeholder of a dream that I'm working to fulfill; namely, to live more simply and slowly, with less stress and more independence.”
Like the real-life farmers, Farmville players have different reasons for getting into their new hobby. Some were encouraged or coerced into signing up by family members or corralled into the virtual farmlands by class reunions.
Some players farm virtually from home or their office jobs and work in the game as a break from their day-to-day duties.
“I work at home, am raising two kids, and caring for an ailing husband,” wrote KidIowa. “I don't get out much other than to the grocery store, school events, etc. So this is my relaxation tool.”
A few Zynga community members also mentioned how Farmville helps them cope with certain mental and physical ailments.
“I suffer from social anxiety disorder, so I don't go out much,” wrote debis762. “This game has helped me through some rough times lately, so I guess I play it as an escape with the added benefit of it being fun!”
Kitty Ann, whose husband is a dairy farmer and a Farmville farmer, wrote: “I cannot help in the real-life farming as I am disabled with [multiple sclerosis] and am limited to my chair. So we tease each other over whose ‘farm’ is better. I say the real one pays the bills and gives me money to make ‘my farm’ all that much more prettier than his.”
With 30 million Farmville farms casting a large shadow over the 2 million farms in the US (according to Zynga), it’s pretty apparent which hobby has the most acreage in pop culture.
Zynga also seems to have been successful in replicating the camaraderie of real-life farmers markets. In both of these worlds, farmers and Farmvillers are open to helping each other, often trading goods and promoting each others’ products. Maybe if I stuck around long enough, I’d see some kind of ruthless competition in the real-life farming industry come to the surface, but during my day at the market, I see nothing but sunny dispositions to match the sunny day.
That Allow Application button on Farmville is looking a little more tempting now…
Nah.
When I received the email that assigned me the Farmville prompt for the Pressing Issue Challenge, I just stared at my inbox. Farmville. I know there are people who love it, but I wasn’t going to touch Farmville with a ten-foot pole, much less my Facebook profile. So could I write an article on Farmville without actually playing the game and handing Zynga my soul personal data? So I decided to take my questions to real-life farmers and Farmville farmers. This was the result.
Meghan Ventura is senior editor/social media coordinator at MyGamer.com, and writes about Japanese video games and culture at her blog, KanjiGames. She won't be your neighbor on Farmville, but she will follow you back on Twitter: @meghanventura.
Quotes from forums have been edited for grammar and spelling.