I Confess!

I had to cop to my h/c gamer buddy last week that I've been playing nothing but nonstop FARMVILLE! Ever since they gave me a bakery I can't get enough of that damn game. I need so much money to afford an ice cream shoppe and only 5 more days until its gone! I will never enter in my CC number but damn, if I didn't have such principles. My farm has gotten TOO adorable!

 

QOTD

best social media stategy: be helpful. :)

- Ryan from Certainly Social

 

Hobby vs. Game

http://blog.games.com/2010/07/29/quote-of-the-moment-my-farmville-hobby/

"I believe we can understand more about why people play games like Farmville by looking hard at stamp collections, sewing circles, and model railroads than by looking at the history of computer "games." Computer "hobby" is a better mental model."

Oh, yeah? Well, gaming is my hobby. What now???

Disney Acquires Social Gaming Company Playdom for up to $763.2 Million

http://mashable.com/2010/07/27/disney-playdom/

Editors note - Social City and Sorority Life are both Facebook Games

Disney has officially acquired Playdom, the makers of popular social games like Social City and Sorority Life, for $563.2 million, with an additional $200 million that could be paid out based on performance.

...

Clearly Disney is serious about the social gaming space; the acquisition comes less than a month after the media giant acquired iPhone app development firm Tapulous. The company sees a lot of synergies between its new social gaming properties and its highly visible brands. “We see strong growth potential in bringing together Playdom’s talented team and capabilities with our great creative properties, people and world-renowned brands like Disney, ABC, ESPN and Marvel,” said Walt Disney CEO Robert Iger in a statement.

FrontierVille!

My latest addiction is a Facebook Game called Frontierville. It's like Farmville only cuter, faster, more pavlovian. The rewards for my patient clicking come more quickly and do-able tasks pop up one after another, letting me know once again I have done a good job providing for my family on the Frontier. I beleive it was a psychologyofgames.com article that discussed how if we got that kind of guaranteed gratification in life, we wouldn't be playing Farmville so much. I can't wait for the day that shiny .gifs saying "Well Done! Ten Points and a Pig!" come exploding out of my screen when I finish a big spreadsheet.

Oh My!

http://blog.games.com/2010/04/15/memoirs-of-a-pet-society-geisha/

After a grueling few hours getting her hair molded with hot wax, Gretchen returns to her okiya for a quick snack before a lunchtime appointment. No sashimi for you today, Kitty!

Social Games Hall of Shame

Oh Facebook Social Games, how you thrill me with your adorable graphics and instant gratification. And yet, your ads literally have NO SHAME. Maybe thats part of what I love about you, yes I suppose it is.

Now lets bring out the feminism constestants:

Do you "Like" this ad?

Thumbs up, they have nailed women's marketing on the head.

FINALLY SOMEONE HAS SEEN TO MY NEEDS, THESE AWFUL TINY wait, what?

This next iPhone Game one for Word-Fu is actually pretty good, heck it worked on me. But again, no shame. Really, my HONOR is at stake if I don't play this game? Harsh Realm.

THE PINK FUR IS FLYING

Someone needs an IRL Referee Cow!

http://www.destructoid.com/don-t-fear-the-farmville-170067.phtml

Somewhere deep in the subterranean depths of the Farmville stronghold, a dark and forbidden ritual is taking place at this very moment. The game's creators, clad in jet black robes, stand in a circle in the server room, chanting gutturally in unison. The focus of their eldritch magicks is an obelisk of pure obsidian in the center of the room, pulsating with a menacing aura of madness and depravity.

It all makes perfect sense!

kekeke

OMG it is so on. Thank you Farmville for kickstarting April Fools!

I was like "OK OMG WTF" when I first saw this pop up:

I was thinking, is Farmville really going THERE now? Would I continue to use it if it did? Of course, but luckily I was not thrown into a moral quandry as it was just an awesome April Fools Day prank. Boosh!

BUY THIS GAME OR THE PUPPY GETS IT!111

The Zen of Farmville - Your Electric Bonsai

My buddy Ed sent me a link to a funny Kotaku Article about Farmville...it made me laugh, especially the author's description of his farm being a 'pathetic fallacy' (Much like growing plants, it takes a few months to get pimpin...you must bend like the Tall Grass...). Also, until today I'd never read the 'rules' to Farmville, much less the Zynga-reccomended Way.

Well I was aghast. If you play the way the rules would follow to the end of a singular logic chain, I guess you would just want more money and a bigger farm. But that would be the lamest game ever! Gah! No wonder people who are used to the logical rules of a traditional video game don't like it. This is a free for all.

Check out my farm, yo. It's my little country home away from home. I have a ton of decor in storage or sold away because I'm very picky. I also have far less plowed area than I could, because jesus who has time for that? I'd rather jump in my hot rod tractor and plow some corn quickly, then get back to treasure inventory and management. You'll note my gorgeous pink-themed topiary garden, just like the topiary garden I've always dreamed of playing in in real life (probably watched The Shining too often).

You want to keep a Farm that you WANT to come back to every day - a self-sustaining fun farm, not another job. A few weeks back I sold off each but three or four of every tree and animal I had (save for single clicks like my dairy full of cows). Do feel free to run through my topiary maze, I even have a snow blanket I can put over everything to make it more Shining-Like.

Survival of the Fittest

I run a lean, sleek social games bookmark folder. Gone are the days when I dallied with fish, ranches, and flowers - bah! Many of those games quickly run out of rewards or interest within a matter of days or weeks, including many previously touted titles. Here's what's survived all these months...what I would reccomend to you today.

Restaurant Ciitay! (does Restaurant City song & dance) I love this game! My magical restaurant is more mind bogglingly awesome than ever, I've got a love potion, bacon orb and rainbow soup on my menu, I'm starting to reach a good propulsion of levelling up since (glory be!) they made the game easier (more possible to get inredients/'money' for free).

Ponzi just barrrrely made this list! They have failed me. Every time I try to log in I have to replay all my actions over and over and it never saves my play. Argh, damn you Ponzi! But I recently saw an update on FB that said they'd upgraded their servers sooo, I'm willing to try again.

SuperPocus! Oh I bought some Mushroom Shelves for my cauldrons yesterday, they're delightful. Everything in this game makes me squee with glee. I could use more 'friends' for earning money but I kind of like being a lone kitttah magician going to spell university.

Fairyland is still pretty cute b/c the flowers turn into musical notes or something totally WTF funny. Same with Enchanted Island.

Cafe World is really hanging in there with its click-fun food action. The food is amusing and delicious looking and the game is very easy to maintain dropping in every few days.

Country Story rocks! Now that they've made it easier I can grow tree spirits and use them to buy gorgeous awesome magical trees. Man if only they'd let ME make a social game...there would be so many magic trees!

I broke down and added four more strangers to my FB so I could go to the next area of 'The Summoning' as all 500 something of my 'friends' refuse to play that game despite my repetitve begging. FINE. The good news is, people who are so h/c that they will post on the very public Summoning feed "ADD ME joesmith@yahoo.com" (I actually tend to only add girls, I guess I feel safer) tend to play a LOT of other social games. Bam, a new 'friend' in 5 other games too!

Country Story and Sky City are the two most bass-ackwards farm games you could imagine, and yet the higher levels involve buying factories to process the vegetables you grow. This extra level of captialism totally keeps me coming back.

Speaking of Farms, I'm still digging Farmville - ingenius ways to continuously make you NEED gifts or else spend your real money. I saw one of my new Summoning 'friends' BEGGING in my FB Friends Feed for clinging vines and roof tiles so she could finish her Farmville Mansion. Okay she was bargaining, or a bit of both. I didn't send her anything b/c I'm too lazy to send gifts these days...but if she was some old buddy I loved I probably would have heeded her plea.

LOL PWND

Check out my new "Smoochify Hex" I used on my buddy in the FB Social Game, "SuperPocus." I am laughed so hard!

Farmville Game Bar

Now this is pure frakking genius.

It's also the beginning of the end. Will Zynga be our new Google? I for one welcome our casual game overlords.

SuperPocus

Oh no a new game has me hooked! This one is pretty slow to load, but oh my, THE CUTE!!! Superpocus is TOO adorable, you are a cute lil animal learning spells, hexes, charms, etc. You cook in your cauldron and visit friends to curse or charm them - curses include giving them a moustache and making them moonwalk. In the clothing store I bought my kitty a mushroom wand and mushroom deelyboppers.

I die of cuuute! Come be my friend!!

It's no secret

That I really, really love Restaurant City, probably my most often played FB Social Game - certainly the one that gives me the highest satisfaction levels.

Imagine my delight to discover they've tweaked some of the annoying parts of the game, are now giving away more free 'money,' and are polling players for input - hence more upgrades.

Is WOW like this? What about other online games? Or is this unique to social games, the constant feedback and changing of gameplay per consumer opinion?

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7DKN2GL

The State of My Social Games

Played Bioshock 2 and Resident Evil 5 DLC this weekend, but we'll be talking about that in a sweet upcoming podcast here on this site.

Instead I will tell you what's captivated me the most in the Great Social Games Frenzy of '10 (as it shall be known in the history books)

Farmville is hanging in there with the awesome graphics and innovative things to collect. But it doesn't excite me the way...

RESTAURANT CITY does! Oh, Restaurant City. They have a new magic theme so now my restaurant looks like a gypsy castle.



Whee! Is that awesome or what? I tell you, life is grand here in the future. It would be sooo much more awesome if I had more cafe-money, stay tuned as I invest in more floating animated delites!

Garden World is pretty fun, I am inventing tons of new flowers every day. Like many games, this now has me thinking about cross-pollinatng IN REAL LIFE. Do gardens work that way?

Country Story WAS a huge drag and at the bottom of my list, but they revamped it! Yay for the dynamicism of social games. Now that I don't run out of energy every 5 minutes, it's worth playing.

Enchanted Island continues to tickle my fancy even though its the silliest gave evar and you can only play for a minute at a time. It's the addictive everlasting levelling up to make more and more awesome plants with magic, dragon scales and phoenix feathers. FUN!

I check on Fairyland every day now, a very slow game of growing flowers and attracting wildlife.

Zoo World is really fun, another 5 minutes a day of effort puts you in a steady stream of levelling up 100 different elements. Breeding, training, buying gear/employees, and visiting other friends for tons o' money!
The Summoning continues to reign supreme. Check out my badass character! Srsly she'll kick your ass with those items she's got on.