A View From the Road: FarmVille Isn't Going Away

[John Funk]

It doesn't matter if facebook and shitty facebook apps like farmville continue to exist for the rest of time, you are never going to attract the people that love them here for longer than a few pageviews. They are not your audience. They never will be.

But if you somehow did get them here, "gaming" news to them is "NEW RAINBOW CHICKEN IN FARMVILLE SHOP FOR FARMCASH!!" Then even if you wrote articles about that, you wouldn't be reaching anyone who didn't already know this, as shit like that is broadcast directly to the completely insulated target demographics of facebook apps.

Every time you validate farmville, zygna, facebook apps, etc with any sort of attention, you don't look like journalists. You look like whores... and that would mean zygna is your pimp.

And yet, the VP of Zynga is speaking as the keynote speaker at GDC Canada. Whoops, guess the people in the industry disagree with you.

more stuff about Zynga, huh? I am starting to agree with the "you where paid off by Zynga" crowd. first they won all but the round against VALVe, and even then you where banning VALve voters for things that Zynga people did and got away with, then there where about six articles about facebook and farmviile, your ganging up on people for saying things you don't like(seriously, three mods vs one guy?), and now your yelling at us in the first part of your articles. you guys really aren't making yourselves look good with this, just getting the people that actually stayed through the madness and the people that have been around a while mad at you.

Oh please. This column was spurred largely by reaction to coverage of Triangle Game Conference, because quite a few of the panels and discussions there revolved around - gasp~! - social media.

As much as some gamers want to deny that they're possibly relevant, that doesn't change the fact that they are. And, by the way, it's perfectly feasible to disagree without "yelling at" people. Which is what we're doing.

I have / had an entire family of non gamers. And they can work out how a controller works just fine.

Despite what you may preach, it isn't rocket science.

Understanding what the controller does is one thing. I remember trying to get my dad to play Smash Brothers with us back in the day, and we could always explain to him the buttons and how to do everything. But actually USING it is something entirely different. How many times have you seen a non-gamer play a shooter and just walk around looking at the floor? Maybe the odd non-gamer will be able to figure it out, but for a lot of people it's a huge barrier.

You can try to argue otherwise, but it's part of the reason the Wii has been so successful, and why Sony and Microsoft are going their own alternative-controller routes. My dad might not know how to hit B-down-push the stick to the side to control angle or whatever, but he sure as hell knows to act like he's swinging a golf club.

 

[John Funk]

And yet, the VP of Zynga is speaking as the keynote speaker at GDC Canada. Whoops, guess the people in the industry disagree with you.

And whats he going to be able to say, exactly? What valuable insight is he going to be able to grant to actual video game developers?

"Make your game as shitty, but rewarding as possible, and people will flock to you in droves."
"If someone else has a good idea, just rip it off completely and release it as your own."
"If you're strapped for cash, offer a "full version" which is really just a 3kb html file, containing a link to a copy of the .swf file."
"Turn your players into free advertising, by offering extensive rewards for spamming links to the game all over their social networks."

Yea, zygna has made some money through extremely shoddy business practice. Does it translate to actual gaming? No. Should it? No. Will it? We all better pray not.

"Oops, you're out of bullets, get 3 more people to play to reload."

Edit: Forgot that outwar beat zygna to the whole "turn your players into free advertising" bit by about a decade. Pretty sure they weren't the first either.

I don't know. He hasn't given the keynote yet - I have no idea what he'll say. But the fact that you're automatically dismissing it outright shows what I think is a profoundly willful ignorance on your part.

The fact of the matter is, people who call the shots in the industry think that there are things that can be learned from what Zynga does. And to pretend that it isn't the case because their products don't appeal to you personally is, I feel, narrowminded.

 

[aemroth]

And yet, the VP of Zynga is speaking as the keynote speaker at GDC Canada. Whoops, guess the people in the industry disagree with you.

And whats he going to be able to say, exactly? What valuable insight is he going to be able to grant to actual video game developers?

"Make your game as shitty, but rewarding as possible, and people will flock to you in droves."
"If someone else has a good idea, just rip it off completely and release it as your own."
"If you're strapped for cash, offer a "full version" which is really just a 3kb html file, containing a link to a copy of the .swf file."
"Turn your players into free advertising, by offering extensive rewards for spamming links to the game all over their social networks."

Yea, zygna has made some money through extremely shoddy business practice. Does it translate to actual gaming? No. Should it? No. Will it? We all better pray not.

"Oops, you're out of bullets, get 3 more people to play to reload."

Edit: Forgot that outwar beat zygna to the whole "turn your players into free advertising" bit by about a decade. Pretty sure they weren't the first either.

Metrics. How to analyze user data, and use the feedback of such analysis for making game design decisions to get the larger audience possible, and easily swap in and out elements based on what the majority of people like or dislike. They are good at this, there's no denying that. If that's a more valid approach to game design or not, is a matter of opinion. But of course, this is objectively thinking of the industry as what they're about: making money. Metrics provide this very well. The ones of us that see something more in games, would prefer creativity to be ahead of metrics in game design decisions, but hey, tough luck for us, it seems, we're a minority. It seems our only chance is to be loud, quite frankly, when you think about it.

 

[aemroth]

Metrics. How to analyze user data, and use the feedback of such analysis for making game design decisions to get the larger audience possible, and easily swap in and out elements based on what the majority of people like or dislike. They are good at this, there's no denying that. If that's a more valid approach to game design or not, is a matter of opinion. But of course, this is objectively thinking of the industry as what they're about: making money. Metrics provide this very well. The ones of us that see something more in games, would prefer creativity to be ahead of metrics in game design decisions, but hey, tough luck for us, it seems, we're a minority. It seems our only chance is to be loud, quite frankly, when you think about it.

Maybe the escapist should give you a job, as that actually makes sense. All this "Zygna cheerleading" almost made me forget there actually were intelligent people on this site.

It makes me want to jump out a window while slashing my wrists (down the road, not across the street), but sense it makes.

The idea that QA or test marketing or whatever its called would transfer into real time, to actively alter game elements to appease whiners is disgusting. Its like someone took a shit in my brain. Game design philosophy would have to be redesigned from the ground up, which is a pretty black cloud (cliffyB living in a cardboard box being the silver lining). But its still not very much to say. "If people don't like something, change it!" is captain obvious level material.

I just... don't get it. Zygna made some money by getting people to play ad vehicles thinly disguised as "games" for days on end. That just doesn't translate to game development. I'm as curious as the next guy to see if they actually have anything else to say, I'm just pretty damned sure they won't.

LOL

Thanks, i guess i should be flattered *aham*

But anyway, make no mistakes, i don't like it anymore than you do. I just try to objectively see the point. Do they have something to teach the industry? Yes. Is it a good thing? It probably is for their pockets, but not for our enjoyment, or such is my guess.

As they appeal to the largest audience possible, they converge and simplify characteristics from various genres and themes of games. And they mix and match and adapt elements based on user statistics. Usual game development doesn't work like this, it evolves by diverging mostly, and only sometimes by converging (ME2 for instance) but even then, trying to maintain the complexity of both genres. And that variety and diversity is a large part of what makes gaming great. Social games don't do well with variety, the large difference between Farmville and all other games proves this.

I see it like this: Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Picasso, Gustav Klimt and Wassily Kandinsky, for instance, are all painters, but have very different styles. And the variety of styles and paintings, and individual creative visions such as theirs are what makes art evolve. If you strip away that variety, combine and simplify characteristics of all of them, and take a paint-by-numbers approach, where's the evolution? Of course, gaming is a much more money-centric form of entertainment (though some would call a few games art), but i believe the analogy still stands. A bit sad, really.

 

[Frank_Sinatra_]

Facebook will die out.

Social networking and social platforming will not.

I actually can't see Facebook dying out. Out of all of the social networks out there Facebook is (arguably) one of the best, and with the aid of FarmVille and Zynga its life has been expanded by a ridiculous portion.

If you take a gander around the internet a lot of upcoming social networking sites borrow from Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo but Facebook seems to get ripped off the most. With a social networking site that has it down to a bloomin science I don't see its death coming.

If Facebook were to die, my guess would be the fault of games like FarmVille taking over the user base, but with the sheer amount of people on the internet, and (in my experience) the amount of people getting pissed at game apps Facebook there should be a balance between social networking users and game users.

 

[Eloyas]

This whole barrier of entry thing confuses me. True the need to learn to use a controller or to buy hardware is a major hurdle for getting new people into the hobby. What I don't get is how Zynga's games are different in that aspect from other flash games except for the part where they are hosted on facebook and spam to everyone? Kongregate, newgrounds, armor games, etc. are full of games with no barrier of entry. If someone tells me that robot unicorn attack is too complicated for most human being, I think I will lose faith in humanity... I bet that if that game did the same things that farmville does (facebook and spam), it would be played by millions more people.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Spoiler

That's as may be Funk, but lots of things are significant and yet go unremarked upon by specialist gaming websites, and a world significantly shaped by the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Zynga is one I dread with every fiber of my being egad, and judging by the fact you felt this article was needed, I'm not really in the minority here.

Why do we prefer to cover our ears and shout "La la la I can't hear you la la la"? Zynga doesn't make games, that's why. Somebody is going to take umbrage with that (possibly you), but allow me to elaborate - what they make are games in the sense that a slot machine is a game. Clearly, its not - it's a system designed to make you pull a lever over and over in the hopes of randomly receiving a reward, engineered as such precisely to make you hopelessly addicted until you give it all your money. Likewise, when you 'play' the lottery you are not actually playing a game (unless you want to qualify "give the government all your money because you suck at math" as a game).

A lot of people don't like MMOs because they all resort to those sorts of tactics to keep their players paying forever and ever, but generally there's still some gameplay layered over top the Machiavellian addiction-triggering underpinnings - the good MMOs can actually muster up some fun that isn't just your brain being rewired to associate your shiny new addiction with happiness. The titles Zynga releases are what you get when you strip all those 'extraneous' trappings of gameplay away, leaving only the slot machine that punishes you when you try to stop pulling it's handle.

They aren't even slightly fun, but they are very addictive, so it doesn't matter that they're criminally boring and lack any real entertainment value - pulling a damn lever over and over is every bit as unfun and yet there's Vegas. The ridiculous success of these thinly disguised digital slot machines is a sign we should be deeply afraid for the future of games development.

Because those aren't games, and treating Zynga as if they were a legitimate purveyor of entertainment software is an insult to developers of casual games everywhere.

This, i commend you for this post, really. Behavioral conditioning, coupled with a viral progression of users that functions like a pyramid scheme or multi-level marketing. It's behavioral Psychology at it's most profitably refined formula.

Well that made my night, commendation happily accepted.

Up till recently I was content to ignore the likes of Zynga forever, as I don't use the Facebook or muck about with half-assed browser games... and then it came to light that several members of my D&D group are Mafia Wars addicts, guys who are certainly not the stereotypical target audience. Really made me wonder why avid gamers (console, PC, tabletop, you name it) would be wasting their time with crappy looking games that appear to offer no gameplay of any substance to my jaded eyes.

A closer examination confirmed my gut reaction that the 'games' were worthless as games, but that didn't actually matter as they objectively knew Mafia Wars was a terrible game and yet played it anyways - the success of Zynga goes to show that fun isn't a necessary component so long as you design your title to rewire the player's brains to feel pleasure when what they're doing is really pointless drudgery.

Like yourself, I feel I'm pretty much obligated to be as firmly opposed to that trend as I possibly can be.

The fact of the matter is, people who call the shots in the industry think that there are things that can be learned from what Zynga does.

What I can't fathom is why you don't seem to find that statement as horrifying as I do - what could those industry bigwigs possibly learn from Zynga that would be to our sub-culture's benefit? The very thought of Zynga influencing the future of games design in any way other than to serve as an example of what you should never ever strive to be like, to me, is as loathsome a concept as an announcement tomorrow that Ubisoft's new DRM is slated to become the new industry standard.

There are some companies you really shouldn't emulate.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Look I have said this before and I will say it again there are no massive barriers to gaming. There are plenty of easy introductory games out there like Crash that are perfect to help new gamers along. The problem is not high entry the problem is people being lazy that is why things like Farmville work. There is little to no effort required on the users part.

It is like learning an instrument if you want to get into you will stick at it. If you are going to be one of those twats who is in it to be cool you will lose interest and drop it. That is the problem with this apparent gaming barrier people are lazy nowdays simple as that.

Uh, wrong. While you're absolutely right that if someone tries hard enough, long enough, they'll eventually learn just about anything you put in front of them, there isn't enough immediate reward for many folks to bother putting the time and effort into gaming. If you're trying to balance a job, your family, and other real life activities, the promise that you maybe will eventually have fun in a month just isn't good enough to put up with the difficulty -- especially with just a few clicks you can be having fun now.

The financial barriers are also very, very real. Most families already have a computer, because it's useful for so very much. Spending $400 on a gaming console is no small decision, not when there's the mortgage and whatnot to consider.

It's not that people are lazy, they simply don't share your priorities.

Yes while I am well aware I am ignoring financial barriers I was commenting on the fact that this apparent barrier of effort is stopping people from gaming. Which it isn't. If the financial barrier was given more detail fair enough but it is not. I thought that this barrier of effort was much more stressed in the article which is completely untrue. As gaming is not that hard to get into if you start with something small like Mario or Crash Bandicoot. Even CoD can be breezed through on easy. While there is a financial barrier there are many games that can played if you have a PC capable of playing Farmville they just won't be as mainstream as Cod more brower based games some of which are very good.

And a person who isn't already into gaming wouldn't know that.

-m

Wouldn't already know what? Browser based games? There are plenty of them to play on Facebook and everyone in my school and I mean everyone knows about these brower based Flash websites like kongregate. So going by that I think it is fair to say everyone knows where to find them,

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Even CoD can be breezed through on easy.

You made me laugh out loud! At work! Probably because I tried to do something like that a few years back and I can tell you exactly why it's not a "breeze":

1. Controller complexity/unfamiliarity. Hitting the right bumper and wondering why your gun isn't firing. Or spamming A instead of X trying to reload.

2. Separate move and look controls.

3. Time pressure. You are being shot! Get out of getting shot! You are going to dieeee! Aaaaaaaaaaaah! You are not in your best level-headed thoughtful state.

4. A visually nondescript scene. Experienced gamers are familiar with the general layout of a combat zone in games, what cover looks like, how to quickly scan a scene or where enemies are likely to be hidden. New gamers, not so much.

I have many memories of playing Halo and trying to figure out how I got stuck in a nondescript box because I couldn't see anything no matter how I tried to move or spin the camera. When it turns out I was just looking at the floor. Usually I figured this out just in time to look up before dying.

1. They have this new thing in games called a tutorial where they explain the controls and how the game works and the controls.

2. Yes this will take a small getting used to but doing two things at the one time isn't that hard after a bit of practise in say the tutorial.

3. On Easy while there will be a bit of pressure enemies drop like flies and you have a mountain of health while this would still stress out a new gamer I don't see this as an overall problem. They are supposed to be under a bit of strain or pressure as it is the first time.

4. I call bollox here. I have gotten lost at least once in every single game I have played for the first time. I don't just mean a little lost. I have spent an hour trying to find which way to go in some levels because I got so lost. In fact in Halo I thought I was going the wrong because of arrows on the floow the second time on the level the snow one and went back to the start but I was going the right way.

Yes and things like that are fine that is why the game is on Easy so you can get used to the game and avoid things like this.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Look I have said this before and I will say it again there are no massive barriers to gaming. There are plenty of easy introductory games out there like Crash that are perfect to help new gamers along. The problem is not high entry the problem is people being lazy that is why things like Farmville work. There is little to no effort required on the users part.

It is like learning an instrument if you want to get into you will stick at it. If you are going to be one of those twats who is in it to be cool you will lose interest and drop it. That is the problem with this apparent gaming barrier people are lazy nowdays simple as that.

Uh, wrong. While you're absolutely right that if someone tries hard enough, long enough, they'll eventually learn just about anything you put in front of them, there isn't enough immediate reward for many folks to bother putting the time and effort into gaming. If you're trying to balance a job, your family, and other real life activities, the promise that you maybe will eventually have fun in a month just isn't good enough to put up with the difficulty -- especially with just a few clicks you can be having fun now.

The financial barriers are also very, very real. Most families already have a computer, because it's useful for so very much. Spending $400 on a gaming console is no small decision, not when there's the mortgage and whatnot to consider.

It's not that people are lazy, they simply don't share your priorities.

Yes while I am well aware I am ignoring financial barriers I was commenting on the fact that this apparent barrier of effort is stopping people from gaming. Which it isn't. If the financial barrier was given more detail fair enough but it is not. I thought that this barrier of effort was much more stressed in the article which is completely untrue. As gaming is not that hard to get into if you start with something small like Mario or Crash Bandicoot. Even CoD can be breezed through on easy. While there is a financial barrier there are many games that can played if you have a PC capable of playing Farmville they just won't be as mainstream as Cod more brower based games some of which are very good.

I think you have a really skewed concept of just how difficult gaming really is, even at its simplest. You have acquired a vast set of skills over the years, many of which you don't even realize. I'm not talking about more complex stuff like mastering controls or divining strategy, either, I'm talking about basic stuff like moving in a 3d space. Simply forming the mental connection between your hands and eyes takes a surprising amount of practice. Mario is not easy. It takes a great deal of skill, but even beyond that, it takes a great deal of knowledge acquisition. Take Super Mario Galaxy as an example. You already know what enemies look like, how they behave, what powerups do for you, how to get them, that coins are good and Yoshi is your friend. The new gamer knows none of that, and learning all of it can be overwhelming and frustrating, especially when you're trying to master a host of other skills at the same time.

Call of Duty can be breezed through on easy? Yes, perhaps, if you already have a great deal of experience with games under your belt. Saying that jumping into gaming is easy is like saying mastering French cooking is easy. Both take years of patient, persistent effort, but the difference with cooking is that the results are a known quantity. Everyone eats, so the appeal of trying to get good at cooking makes sense. But the appeal of games is unknown to non-gamers. Sure, it'll be "fun", but they already do a lot of things that they consider fun, and already know how to do...why should they knock themselves out and feel stupid and clumsy for a while?

I never it was easy in itself I said it was easy to get the hang of than a game like Call of Duty well atleast I meant to say that. You can easily find the 2d games for DS or something quite easily if 3d is too hard in fact the last one was in 2.5d or whatever that is supposed to be. If you can find me someone who absolutely cannot grasp something like this [http://www.kongregate.com/games/PsychoGoldfish/generic-defense-game] or this [http://armorgames.com/play/505/sonny] or even games like those 2. I will take time out of my Sunday this Sunday to explain to them how to play the game. Something like a tower defense game yes requires a bit of pratice and knowledge but getting started and playing a few levels is not too hard. Something like Sonny is actually quite easy and there are plenty of guides if you google Sonny walkthrough that tell you how to play the game. Sure character building might be a bit hard at first but for everyone it is as you don't know what works together.

There are plenty of other flash games like this people could play to get used to gaming. I never meant to say they were going to be perfect in the first few hours but something like Mario does provide a challenge while still keeping it easy enough and accessible enough to new people. Yes you have to learn to move in 3d and how enemies react, etc. It is still a lot easier to get into and start you off than others things which is what I was pointing out. I say this because I actually started off playing platformers so I think they are a good way to break people into gaming as they give you a good knowledge of movement.

 

[JEBWrench]

Nice article, Herr Funkenstein. Just out of curiosity, where did you get your numbers for social gaming? The link you have about Zynga's valuation also 404'd.

I usually get my information from Inside Social Games, and their metrics are generally lower than the ones you posted. Thus why I ask.

 

[theklng]

So social games are here to stay. Um yes, I agree. Is the point of this article just to hear yourself talk?

Are you not familiar with the idea of an editorial arguing a point...?

seems redundant arguing a point that has already proven itself. but i guess a paycheck has to be earned somehow.

 

[BDBracket]

Just because something is popular and significant doesn't mean that your relatively niche audience is interested in it.

This piece strikes me as "scolding the readers for not enjoying (some of) your articles," and that is a little bizarre.

Personally, I don't mind reading about Zynga, but I think the lessons to be learned from it are not that interesting.

Free things will outperform things that cost money by an order of magnitude, even when the free things have much much lower quality. You can learn this lesson from the iPhone App Store as well. This is also the reason publishers end up saying things like "90% of the people who have our game pirated it." Of course that's true. People who are getting games for free might download 15 or 20 games in a month, while those of us who pay are saving our pennies to buy just 1.

 

[Lim3]

I must have been imagining things when you said they were here to stay.

"LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAAAAAR YOU"

I only hope after the internet apocalypse online gaming will survive, and the escapist of course.

 

[Mechsoap]

i hate farmville, lesser gamers take it as a real thing when its nothing more then a life consuming flash game that has gone far to populer, i dont support the idea with zynga

 

[ThreeKneeNick]

The article sounds very defensive to me.

As much as you think you heard every anti-Zynga argument out there, everyone with such an opinion has already heard your point of view, too. You see, its a popular subject... You have the advantage of being in a position of authority, being privileged with the opportunity to write for a Totally Awesome Gaming Site, whereas most of us have to be content with writing a short comment somewhere deep within the bowels of the same site...

And you have to write about it, else this gaming site is not keeping up with the trends, and game developers have to hold conferences about social media else they will be marginalized by their peers, largely for the same reason. But the whole lot of you overlook the fact that any internet enabled PC is a potential casual gaming platform, facebook or not, instead you only choose to obsess about the numbers, as if it were the only important thing.

Well, maybe they are for corporate executives. They shouldn't be for a gaming website or gaming journalists. You guys know better than numbers, you guys know that whats really important about gaming, as a medium and an art form, or at least you are supposed to. That's why we are here, and that's why you get the comments every time you mention facebook or farmville. Farmville is not the first, nor the last, but you treat it like it is unmindful of your audience, and to me at least, its getting very tiring.