Zynga: Morphing Fun into Extortion via Farmville

Whether you love or hate their games, Zynga’s products are rife with greed (not to mention total disregard for originality, as was the case with the recent release of Dream Heights, which appears to be a blatant copy of Nimblebit’s Tiny Tower.  That however, is a grievance for another article) . I haven’t played all of Zynga’s games, but of the ones I’ve played, there is nothing more appalling than what they have done with Farmville.  

I will confess to being one of the people who played Farmville in its early days. I found it relaxing with the simple premise of repetitive actions farming crops. I could explore it leisurely or compete with neighbors if I wanted to and nothing (other than crops withering) was set on a timer. Eventually they added the ability to add buildings which one would build with items players could ask their neighbors for.  There were two kinds of request mechanisms in Farmville then, direct requests to friends, or wall posts that anyone could answer. More recently, the ability to add Farmville neighbors without them being a Facebook friend was implemented. Sounds awesome right?  Being able to add these neighbors allowed one some advantages (bigger land, mystery boxes) but did not allow one the ability to get help via the request mechanisms. Not being friends with the neighbors, means you cannot ask them directly for items, nor are they able to see your feed and answer requests that way. 

This becomes important when one looks at the last few themed events and how one who plays the game is able to participate.  Let’s start with Halloween 2011. Players could attain treats for their jack-o-lantern in a variety of ways. Treats were gotten from the holiday building, crafted items, and directly from friends.  All items turned into the same currency that was then used to trade for nifty items.

Now let’s look at the Holidays, 2011.  To build the Magic Snowman, we now find that we need to acquire two different types of currency – top hats and snowflakes. Snowflakes were very easy to come across, from the Holiday building and crafted items.  Top hats on the other hand, were only available by sending requests to friends.  Remember now, that new neighbor feature does not allow for all those new neighbors to actually help you get them. And of course, look at the balance of items needed for things – way more of the harder to acquire top hats than the easy to get snowflakes.

If you don’t have enough friends playing the game, the only way to participate is to purchase farm cash with real money.  Hm.  Onward to Valentines, 2012.  Now there are three different forms of items (currency) needed to exchange items for rewards.  The love arrows were a dime a dozen and very easy to come by. The bows and wings however, were only available via friend requests. And again, the Farmville only neighbors are of no use.  

I honestly have no issue with games having perks and other things that make the game accelerate or easier for those who want to buy in and play that way.  That is how these games make their money, and I won’t begrudge them that.  However, what I find so appalling in the case of Farmville, is that the game has gone well beyond those things (IE: not required to play or participate in events/quests)  to preying on a variety of human foibles like the Pokémon mentality (gotta catch them all!) and teasing people into getting close to finishing something (for timed things like holiday events or quests, which are now ALL timed, unlike before) to push people to just spend a little here and there to try to keep up, or just outright gimmicks like the balloon pop game for collecting items. Some of it is blatant, and some of it is subtle, but it’s all insidious. 

Events that should be open to everyone to enjoy, became more and more complex and have left people unable to participate and enjoy the game in a way that encourages them to continue playing.  If their aim is to drive away potential customers and eviscerate customer loyalty, they've succeeded beyond their own expectations. 

I logged in the other day to make sure I wasn't missing anything for this, to open up to this:

Moving on to slots eh? Catch those gamblers! But wait! Then I logged in today.

 

It's like a train wreck. I just can't look away. It was one thing to see this progression of subtle coercion playing on the Pokémon mentality… to this. My mouth is agape. It's so blatant. Apparently,  I didn't need to write this article, because they just hopped straight to the punch line.  Rampant Greedmongering.