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

SilverKyo

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oh, hey Shamus [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/7373-Experienced-Points-Zynga-and-the-Rise-of-the-New-Gamer], you got a new hair cut or something?

Joking aside, I understand your point, but it doesn't change the fact that I despise farmville and the like with a burning passion. After trying it for five minutes, it wasn't hard to realize that solitaire and minesweeper were better designed games, because they... you know... require some sort of thought
 

Matt_LRR

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Nov 30, 2009
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Glademaster said:
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.
you're completely neglecting buy-in costs. There is a financial barrier to gaming that is very much present, and which disuades people from entering the gaming spehere, particularly those who only have a passing interest in gaming very casually.

In order to play videogames, you need to buy both a system that can play any given game (PC, or console, take your pick). You also need to buy accessories, the game itself and so on. If your'e a person who has only a very base-level interest in games, or who is a little curious, but unfamiliar with the market, you're not going to make that outlay of cash.

Farmville is a free game with a built-in distribution model. You don't have to buy anything, there's no extra tech needed, and if you're on facebook, you already own a system that can play FV. If you have FB, you have access to FV.

However low you might consider the barrier to gaming to be (and I would argue that it's much higher than I've described here, on account of several additional factors) you must see that literally -no- barrier is going to outperform "some" barrier.

-m
 

Susan Arendt

Nerd Queen
Jan 9, 2007
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Glademaster said:
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.
 
Jun 11, 2008
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Matt_LRR said:
Glademaster said:
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.
you're completely neglecting buy-in costs. There is a financial barrier to gaming that is very much present, and which disuades people from entering the gaming spehere, particularly those who only have a passing interest in gaming very casually.

In order to play videogames, you need to buy both a system that can play any given game (PC, or console, take your pick). You also need to buy accessories, the game itself and so on. If your'e a person who has only a very base-level interest in games, or who is a little curious, but unfamiliar with the market, you're not going to make that outlay of cash.

Farmville is a free game with a built-in distribution model. You don't have to buy anything, there's no extra tech needed, and if you're on facebook, you already own a system that can play FV. If you have FB, you have access to FV.

However low you might consider the barrier to gaming to be (and I would argue that it's much higher than I've described here, on account of several additional factors) you must see that literally -no- barrier is going to outperform "some" barrier.

-m
Yes I am well aware of neglecting the financial barriers. I was simply going with as stated the apparent barrier of effort required to actually play the games which was seemed to be highlighted. This is untrue as gaming is not that hard to actually get into effort wise.

Also if you can play Farmville you can play loads of old PC games so that really negates the cost of platform.
 

Aurgelmir

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Nov 11, 2009
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I don't mind those games, because... well... I don't play them ;)

But I have a great issue with Facebook. And that is the fact that it seems to become more and more "needed" to enjoy "life".

Ok, that might sound weird. But more and more contests and stuff are directed through facebook, even the Escapist has the ask Rebbeca Mayes Muses question thing, which you can only take part in if you are on facebook.

I jsut dislike how ONE internet site is controlling so much of things these days. And its not like I have a choice in "facebook provider" its either facebook or not facebook.

I myself is not on facebook.. yet... but I feel its harder and harder not to be. How can we let one "program" rule so much of our life.

PS: Sure e-mail and phones are very much needed in this day and age, but I have a choice in service provider. And I have never seen a contest been held exclusively through MSN.
 
Jun 11, 2008
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Susan Arendt said:
Glademaster said:
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.
 

Therumancer

Citation Needed
Nov 28, 2007
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*Shrugs*

I'm one of those that thinks Zynga gets too much attention, and I think those numbers are very deceptive. Right now Zynga has the advantage of being the first ones on scene using this method to sell advertising. I believe (personally) that this is where most of their revenue comes from, I do not think they are making all that much money off of the "cash shops" of games like Farmville or whatever despite what they might present. Still getting millions upon millions of "hits" is an impressive thing to someone who wants to sell advertising space.

The problem though is that as more people get involved in this, that audience is going to be increasingly divided, the hits in each area are going to go down, and it's not going to be all that profitable or special in the long run.

Back during the 1990s you had all those mall survey guys, which started out being fairly popular. You'd have some dude approach you, and offer you free samples of so and so product in exchange for doing a survey. It was cool for a while but then it got to the point where you had these dudes staking out pretty much every high traffic mall, and even multiple groups operating in the biggest ones. Leading to the whole "want to take a survey" joke from Animaniacs because it became hateful and annoying.

The current situation seems a lot like that where Zynga seems cool because they are the first ones doing it. They will consult and sell "Expertise" until the market is saturated
and we'll doubtlessly see companies who invest in this now collapsing as the market becomes divided and the novelty wears out. We're looking at what amounts to a fad, that like all fads seems "massive" and like it will go on forever. I don't object to Zynga and these "social media" games getting some coverage, but I think it's being taken waaay too seriously.

Besides, we've more or less been here before. Back before the internet became what it is now, we had these things called "Bulletin Board Systems" or BBSes. People used to run them out of their houses, and there were these things called "Echos" which were the social networking sites of their day where BBS systems would share message boards by periodically uploading and downloading information to people running "hub" systems.

On BBS systems you had these "Door Games" which were very simple games where while logged in you could do stuff have your progress saved, and then other people logging into the same BBS could do the same thing, and at the end of the day it would process results. Some games would work off of hubs and send packets out so people on multiple boards could play together and such. Less advanced and "purdy", but pretty much the same exact thing that you see here. A few people got the idea that this was the way of the future because of all the people that could be reached, and a few lucky fellows made apparently a small fortune through registration fees with some of the first successful games. Tons of people jumped on the bandwagon for these games used by "casual" BBS users and in the end it simply went nowhere except for the first few guys. Interestingly some of you might remember a game called "Double Daggers" by "Prince Desty", in the credits it has "Additional Ideas and Concepts by Therumancer" (that is me). Never went anywhere, but when I was a kid I was pretty into the whole BBS thing and thought Door Games were da bomb. :p

This is on a larger scale, but fundementally the same thing, and will doubtlessly end the same way. I find it somewhat ironic because it seems that while time goes on, the same basic events re-occur. Right now we have this Zynga thing, and at the same time we've got people trying to bring back Interactive movies of the sort that were tried around the advent of CD RoM tech for PCs.


I'm probably not explaining/articulating myself well, but basically I doubt think this is a big deal. Indeed I think it's only become one because of all the hype surrounding it.

I could be wrong, but in a few years I'll imagine some fortunes will be squandered by people trying to emulate Zyga. You'll have dozens if not hundreds of "social network games" for casual people, many of which will become ghost towns, constantly fighting to get someone to buy advertising space.

Ironically I also suspect that there will be a couple of fairly successful games but they will succeed by using the online social platforms, while not being all that "casual". I look at things like say "Trade Wars" and other similar games for the BBS systems which seemed to be the most enduring of the crop once the mad rush died out, and people finally realized they weren't going to make money by programming ANSI graphics. :p
 

John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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rembrandtqeinstein said:
Facebook, like myspace before it, is a fad and will die out just like all other fads. Eventually the current crop of users will grow up a bit and realize nobody cares they took a poo at 9:13 am, and it contained corn.

Saying Farmville is the wave of the future is like someone in 1985 saying breakdancing was the future. Yes it looks that way NOW but give it a couple of years.
Facebook will die out.

Social networking and social platforming will not.
 

Cari-des

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I'm sure just like all other popular casual games, Farmville is here to stay. It's not particularly news at all. It's more common sense. When a game gets as popular as Farmville even if Facebook dies out, it will live on somewhere else. That's why there's so many versions of "Bejeweled" and "Tetris" and all of those other casual games that we all just hate to love.
 

randommaster

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I find Farmville funny because a lot of people are like, "ZOMG Harvest Moon was awesome!" and then turn around and say "ROFL noob stop playing Farmville its not a game!!!!11!one."

They're (almost) the samee game, and I can't see why people are raising a ruckus about it. I don't like, or even play, Farmville but I don't play Harvest Moon either because it's not the kind of game I like.
 

Matt_LRR

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Nov 30, 2009
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Glademaster said:
Susan Arendt said:
Glademaster said:
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
 

randommaster

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John Funk said:
Facebook will die out.

Social networking and social platforming will not.
No, Facebook will turn into zombie website that hides in the tubes and infects other packets as they go by, slowly turning the entire internet into a mass of websites sending you requests to join your friends.

...Anyways, I wonder what will kill Facebook, another site or an internal collapse. I'm going to say the later, but I am curious as to what would replace it.
 

John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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Matt_LRR said:
Glademaster said:
Susan Arendt said:
Glademaster said:
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
Bingo.

Look, I know it's easy to think that gaming is as easy to get into as riding a bike, but it's not. We can't even make that sort of judgment because we've been playing games for years - almost as much time as we spend in school. It's literally second nature to us.

It's not second nature to millions and billions of other people.
 

PedroSteckecilo

Mexican Fugitive
Feb 7, 2008
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John Funk said:
rembrandtqeinstein said:
Facebook, like myspace before it, is a fad and will die out just like all other fads. Eventually the current crop of users will grow up a bit and realize nobody cares they took a poo at 9:13 am, and it contained corn.

Saying Farmville is the wave of the future is like someone in 1985 saying breakdancing was the future. Yes it looks that way NOW but give it a couple of years.
Facebook will die out.

Social networking and social platforming will not.
Facebook MAY die out, who's to say what will and will not last.

My only REAL beef with Facebook gaming is that, at the moment, it's largely shovelware (Zynga included) designed to scam players with endless spam and freemium incentives so that they'll eventually pay for something they've been enjoying for free.
 

rembrandtqeinstein

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John Funk said:
rembrandtqeinstein said:
Facebook, like myspace before it, is a fad and will die out just like all other fads. Eventually the current crop of users will grow up a bit and realize nobody cares they took a poo at 9:13 am, and it contained corn.

Saying Farmville is the wave of the future is like someone in 1985 saying breakdancing was the future. Yes it looks that way NOW but give it a couple of years.
Facebook will die out.

Social networking and social platforming will not.
Already people are being robbed because they posted pics of their new TV and also listed when they would be out of town. Already people have been arrested or lost jobs because of pics on facebook/myspace.

Right now it is only the curmudgeons and paranoids (I'm a little column A, little column B) who avoid "social" internets, eventually the mainstream will realize any information available can and will be used against them.
 

Susan Arendt

Nerd Queen
Jan 9, 2007
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Glademaster said:
Susan Arendt said:
Glademaster said:
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?
 

Gaias

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Apr 2, 2009
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I always thought that their was a natural wariness to the success of social media games and developer/producers following suit to make those kind of game. An irrational concern that top companies will drop the current modus operandi and only make those games created by Zygna. The kind of unreasonable assumption that this is the end of the game they have become used to. That the triple A title will disappear and we will be left with video games that they don't like, because the developers/producers went easy path of low production/high return route.
 

Delock

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I actually think that Farmville and the like are actually a good thing for gaming, and before I get flamed for that I'd like to explain.
I'd like to use my experience with Runescape as an example. Sure, I was a gamer before that, but I really had no experience with online games and MMOs due to the whole start up fee (buying the game and getting a month or so of subscription time), so Runescape was a new experience for me. It was interesting to interact with other players and some what opened my eyes to the possiblity of online play. That being said, I slowly came to recognize it as less and less of what I'd consider a game, and consequentially, had less and less fun with it. It also had the whole thing that still goes on today about having to pay to get the true experience and to be at an advantage in the game. However, before I actually sunk low enough to be a premium member, I decided to pick up City of Heroes and try it out, since it looked like it had the whole social aspect that I liked about Runescape, as well as actually gameplay. In a nutshell, the free game opened me up to another branch of gaming.
Similarly, I also disregarded Point-and-click adventure games until I played a few on Newgrounds and found I loved the genre.
Putting these free games up on a popular social networking site actually could turn out to be benefitial to potential gamers as it helps them feel confident about investing in a console or gaming PC, as well as gets them to look for what games they know they're interested in and help decide on which console is right for them based on that rather than just randomly choosing and hating their decision. I think that gaming needs to take another look at these free games as not only does it allow for a fanbase that would ordinarily not be included, but it also helps ease in people that just need the extra help.

That being said, I know there are people who still pay to become premium members in Runescape, or buy extra content from Zynga that never move up from there, but I have no problems with those people. I myself hate most RTS games and yet I don't get up in arms over Starcraft 2's huge amoung of publicity right now, so I don't see why so many people are so upset that news is being given out about facebook games on this site. It's in its own category of games that some people enjoy and want to know about, so let them hear about it in peace. So long as it only fills a niche of gaming rather than takes over completely, there's no real issue here.

Also, like some people have said, Zynga just happens to have figured out how to tap into this market the best (ie, facebook). I don't know if this will supply them the loyal fanbase they need or if they'll be uprooted since most of the general public doesn't really care who made the game or not (I'd like to remind you all of your own past where I'm betting most of you had favorite games/movies where you didn't know the names of the actors/directors/producers/etc. but rather only really cared about the whole product). Only time will tell.

As for social networking, if anything, I'd say it will grow stronger as time goes on. Hell, just looking at human history could probably give you that general idea as you notice that as time goes on, technology evolves so that we become more connected to each other (letters -> telegraph -> telephone -> email -> social sites). It will be interesting to see where things go from here.
 

Madkipz

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

You may not like FarmVille, Facebook, or Twitter, but guess what? They're here to stay.

Read Full Article
so is swordplay, as long as people exist their creations will exist.
 

ramox

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Mar 11, 2010
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Susan Arendt said:
Glademaster said:
Susan Arendt said:
Glademaster said:
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?
Most of the people we talk about here would not be able to race through CoD...
For the simple reason that they wouldn't even be able to install the game on their computers. I am pretty sure a good part of facebook/farmville "pros" cannot tell the difference between their virus scanner and a game installer.
Don't get me wrong, that's fine, but it adds to this "barrier" we talk about here, a lot.