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Wednesday, December 02, 2009

The story of FarmVille and Mafia Wars

Lots of people ask me why I don't play FarmVille or Mafia Wars on Facebook. The truth is I waste most of my online time on this blog. I don't need anymore Web distractions unless it is something shocking like this.

Time Magazine's Belinda Luscombe has an article on the company behind the popluar games Zynga got its start. It might be more Mafia Wars than FarmVille:

FarmVille is the most popular game on Facebook--65 million unique monthly players and growing. It is also the furthest place imaginable from the seedy underbelly of the Internet. It's a hamlet where the sun always shines, crops always grow and your friends drop by to do chores accompanied by plinky guitar music. Its astonishing popularity is a testament to the potential of gaming on social networks. Social games promise the golden pork-chop combo of the addictiveness of computer games with the communality of Facebook and MySpace. And they generate some of their revenue from product come-ons, which is where Michelle--and FarmVille's owners--has run into trouble. READ THE REST
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