2009-09-19

Socionomics Watch—Everybody's Farming

I read this news a few weeks ago: FarmVille Leads Top 25 Facebook Games
Zynga's social game FarmVille doubled the amount of monthly active users month-on-month, attracting 33.4 million monthly active users on Facebook, far exceeding any other title during the period, according to a new chart published on Inside Social Games.

Social game developer Zynga released the virtual farming title on June 19, and last month claimed the game is currently the "largest and fastest growing social game."

The next-closest game from a monthly active user standpoint during the period was another Zynga game, Mafia Wars, which attracted 18.7 million monthly active users on Facebook, up from 15.22 million the prior month.

In FarmVille, players create and manage virtual farms, and stay connected to friends through the Facebook social network. They can also purchase virtual items such as plants, animals, and buildings. Zynga said the game has attracted over 1 million new daily active users per week on average.
At the link, there's a chart of the most popular games. Number three is another farming game, Farm Town. The Wall Street Journal Digits blog has more info on Farmville. GamesBeat also covers Farmville.

This phenomenon isn't just in the United States. Facebook has users all over the world of course, but it turns out that many QQ users are playing farming games in China.

Here's an article discussing how players can steal other farmers' food in the game.网络游戏“开心农场”,玩的居然是“偷”和“抢” Some players wake up at night to loot farms, and the game is popular enough that there's a discussion of how parents should approach this issue with young children. Here's another on the issue of stealing in the game. “偷菜游戏”怎成了白领的精神家园? Most Chinese articles I found were concerned with the morality in these games.

Use of the game undoubtedly has its own socionomic component. Since it has become the most popular game, it may be that peak popularity has already arrived. Nevertheless, the fact that at least two of the largest countries in the world have turned to farming games may hold some evidence of social mood. In many people's minds, farming is a more simplistic way of life. In China, a very sizable minority of the population is still engaged in farming, but the romantic notion of farming remains in the minds of city dwellers.

No comments:

Post a Comment