Gaming by Obligation - Case Study: Farmville

Lets get one thing out right off the bat. I am a self-hating Farmville player. There. I said it. I honestly don't know how it happened. I was one of those people over a year ago that used to hate seeing those Facebook posts from my friend who, for some reason or another, kept finding lost cows on their farm that were looking for homes on my non-existent farm.

Awww. It may look cute and sad, but it has an agenda. An evil agenda.

As I started paying more attention to social media gaming trends, I decided I had better bite the bullet and see what this "Farmville" game was all about. It was supposed to be for research. Well, over a year later, I'm still "researching" it. Granted, I don't play it as much as I did at the beginning - I maybe spend 20 minutes a day tending to my fake, pointless crops and my peculiarly pixelated livestock. But for those 20 minutes, I am filled with a sense of determination - nay, a sense of calm determination. I feel like I am really accomplishing something, when in fact I'm accomplishing absolutely nothing when I could actually be accomplishing...well...something.

A Farmville player's worst nightmare - withered crops. (AKA, how the game forces you back)
Harvest on time. You don't want this on your conscience, do you??

Truth be told, while I don't consider Farmville to be an actual "game" (as do a lot of other people) it is a very interesting look at how the social media space has taken over our every day lives.

"Honey, you were supposed to take the dog out an hour ago!"
"Get off my back! I'm trying to teach my Farmville dog to roll over!"

While mindless clicking may seem pointless, it is strangely soothing, and it helps feed my closet obsessive-compulsive behavior. Similar to how kids love collecting things, I find myself with the desire to master every crop in the game, and collect every mastery sign. For those who don't know, mastering a crop requires you to plant and harvest a certain number of that crop, and when you are done, you get a sign to proudly display on your farm, showing your "accomplishment" to your fellow Farmville neighbors. Some can take you a week of constant planting and harvesting. Others, a few weeks. It all depends on your level of obsession.

Look ma! I've 'dun mastered 'sum crops, I did!

This is where the sense of obligation comes in to play. Since I've already invested so much time mastering these crops, I feel that if I stop now, I will somehow be failing myself. Silly, I know, but this is how they get you. And while you are toiling away trying to master crops, they release new crops, and despite the profanities that stream from my mouth from knowing that this will never end, the rage somehow converts itself to even more determination.

And so, this is the state of social gaming today. Some people have speculated that it will all come crashing down soon, and only quality games will remain. Gone will be the days where a social game will be a repurposed, repackaged marketing and metrics machine. Zynga, the maker of Farmville and other top Facebook games, has built their business model on numbers and hooks, and other companies like PopCap, makers of quality games such as Bejeweled and Peggle, have started calling Zynga out on their evil ways. I, for one, am all for a shift in social gaming where quality wins out over metrics.

If Farmville disappeared forever tomorrow, I would be free of its evil clutches, but unfortunately I would be back looking for that next pointless fix. Luckily, I'm working on a project of my own that will hopefully be that next pointless fix for other people in my predicament, but will do so with quality and charm rather than hooks and market research.

Yes, you've been properly warned.