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Reader Comments (34)

Posted: Jan 9th 2010 11:59AM myr said

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Nope.

Only browser games I'm guilty of playing are Runescape back in like, 2000, and just recently the Dragon Age game out of boredom.

Only reason I'm on facebook at all is I wouldn't get to talk with some people otherwise. Social networking = ew.

Posted: Jan 9th 2010 12:13PM J Brad Hicks said

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I don't go anywhere near them. The tech industry press has been relentless about what a pile of thieving scams they all are. I grudgingly use Facebook, because it's the only practical way to keep up with some of my friends, but block every new app that shows up on my wall. And even then, I'm routinely depressed at how vulnerable some of my friends, people I thought of as smart, are to transparent scams.

The reason that Facebook is the most profitable of the social networking sites is that it's the most shamelessly dishonest, corrupt, vile, and crooked of them.

Posted: Jan 9th 2010 12:26PM Pingles said

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Came here to post the same thing.

Facebook currently has some serious privacy issues and one culprit are these games. When you sign up for them you also sign up every one of your friends to have their information dumped into whatever advertising system these companies are teamed up with.

It's a bit ironic that Facebook was originally designed to be Myspace but where you need permission to see someone's info and then they have turned it into a personal information distribution system.

Do a Google search on Facebook Privacy and games and you'll be amazed at how easy it is to leech information from both you and your friends accounts.
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Posted: Jan 9th 2010 1:28PM Cinnamoon said

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It's only a scam if you give them money, and really it only takes the tiniest amount of willpower not to want to buy anything when what you're buying is pretty ugly; you can play all of their little games for free otherwise and not really miss out on anything important. And the easy way not to let Facebook compromise your security is not to put very much of your personal information on it. My name isn't a big deal (I use my middle name and my husband's surname), and they can guess to within about 100 miles as to where I live based on my IP anyway, but Facebook gets no more than that from me. And no, the games don't get any more automatic personal information from people who don't sign up than a random person randomly searching for you on Facebook -- that is to say, exactly what you give them.

My mother (!) dragged me onto Facebook, which I abhor, and into some of her Zynga games as her neighbor, which I'm ambivalent about, and it all went downhill from there. Some of them are certainly better than others -- the "treadmills" that are also miniature Sims-esque design platforms can be pretty cute (some of my friends' farms, for example, show a tremendous amount of creativity). I don't find them addicting really but they can certainly be a repetitive chore; I've kept to two of the nicer ones out of habit and politeness (I tend to prefer meatier games and MMOs). It's certainly nice to see some of my non-gamer friends and relatives gaming, even if it's on this limited basis. Maybe it'll be a springboard to real gaming.

But I think Massively has misunderstood the concept of the game from the player's standpoint: you don't sit there and look at the screen and do nothing while your burgers cook, plants grow, or fish swim. Mind-numbing tedium like that is reserved for MMO travel such as in EVE and LOTRO. :D Most of the people I know will play once or twice a day, and set their various tasks to work while they are also at their real work. Plant your sunflowers during breakfast; harvest them the next day at breakfast and re-plant; and so on. That's really all many of these players have time for, so it fills a perfect niche for them.

Posted: Jan 9th 2010 2:25PM (Unverified) said

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Well put.
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Posted: Jan 9th 2010 1:32PM Cinnamoon said

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Seriously, you guys marked him down? I took him for satire. I mean come on, caps and all -- he was being sarcastic.

Posted: Jan 9th 2010 1:32PM ultimateq said

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I do not play on facebook, although I do use it as a social networking site. I am very proud to have resisted facebook games.

Posted: Jan 9th 2010 1:36PM (Unverified) said

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I had attached a laptop to my stationary bike, and wanted something to pass the time....

....I ended up getting sucked into Mafia Wars, Mobsters 2, and even Fishville. Obsessed, sadly. Then by a click of the ad, I found myself sucked into Evony.

Now I'm back playing console games, and wondering how the heck these games sucked me in so bad... :-/

Posted: Jan 9th 2010 1:54PM (Unverified) said

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I hardly even go to Facebook.

Posted: Jan 9th 2010 2:04PM mszv said

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I really enjoy Farmville, which is a very nice little simulation game -- and your farms don't really have to be farms, exactly! Mine is more of a citrus orchard and park for my animals, which roam throughout the park, no pens for them! I also have a pond, a crashed spaceship (from the Roswell days), a mansion, and a ferris wheel, among other things. I grow grapes and flowers. And yes, you don't spend your time watching the screen. You log on, plant, harvest, collect eggs, rearrange your farm, send gifts to your Farmville friends, go to your Farmville friends' farms and help out, see if you want to buy anything with your Farmville cash, and then move on. Time passes when you aren't there, which makes it a fun game. If it takes two days to grow something, you come back and what you planted is grown. Being that Zynga wants to keep you in the game, they come up with seasonal items and new things to get for your "farm". I'm enjoying my animated ferris wheel with the little animals in the seats. Yes, indeedy, Farmville is cute!

You play Farmville in liittle bits of time, which is great for busy people, and you can play it in any browser. I like it a lot. I hope I'll be able to play it on the go via the Android platform.

If you consider simulation games to be "games" (I do), then Farmville is a simulation game. It's a pleasant pastime, and it's fun to see how different people make their farms. You can spend actual money on the game (I have, a little), but you don't have to. I realize that Zynga has some questionable marketing practices, pushing their questionable affiliate relationships, but I never go there.

I don't play Mafia Wars, but I'm getting a tiny bit in Castle Age, and I play Tiny Adventures, which is sweet little simulation of Dungeons and Dragons, the original role playing game.

As to the question about skill, easy skill, yes. I think of them as more exercises in creativity and roleplaying (not MMORPG roleplaying, pretending) in a casual social setting. I also like the asynchronous gameplay, and I wish we'd see more of that in MMORPGs. Why can't we have quests where a group of people can accomplish something and everyone doesn't have to logon at the same time? This won't work for combat, or people are not patient, but it could work for other quests. Someone in your group slays the dragon guarding the treasure chest, then your lockpick person picks the lock later, when they logon, and so forth.

There's always going to be time intensive MMORPGs, the three hour battle with a twenty-five person team. There's always going to be games where the point of the game is for people to be mean (my word, you can translate that as aggressive, assertive or competitive) with each other. I don't see why we can't have a place in the grownup beautiful big world MMORPG for cooperative, sometimes asychronous play where you can play in shorter bursts of time, don't have to be on that long, and can help each other out. Call me "carebear", I don't care.

The MMO world and the game world in general should learn from the Facebook social games instead of bashing them. Anyway, from what I've read, these games and game developers are the darlings at GDC (Game Developer Conference). It's always interesting when a game company can tap into a new market.

Posted: Jan 9th 2010 5:54PM Suplyndmnd said

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"I hope I'll be able to play it on the go via the Android platform."

When they push the Flash version 10.1 in an update we can play. Cant as of yet except I think on the new phone. Nexus One I think it is? I think it already has Flash capabilities but i'd check up on that first. From what i've heard we should get 10.1 (I have Motorola Droid) pretty much any day now. At most a month.
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Posted: Jan 9th 2010 6:24PM (Unverified) said

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I would argue that this is the inevitable evolution of online gaming. Consider WoW and it's 8,000 clones - is there really any skill involved in clicking the Attack button and killing 10 rats, then 10 badgers, then 10 wolves? This is the exact same thing without pretending to be a full game, and, more importantly, WITHOUT THE SUBSCRIPTION.

Now people can play and compare their little kingdom to their friends just the same as comparing their new armor set for their online character - FOR FREE. Granted there are exceptions in the MMO genre (Eve Online), but for the most part, MMOs themselves should be under pressure to have more content and more excitement in the next generation. Therefore, it's good for online gaming and good for the gamers.

Here's hoping the corporate machine takes notice and ups the bar on online gaming before trying to charge me $15/month to play their game.

Posted: Jan 10th 2010 6:45AM MewmewGrrl said

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That's not really fair saying they involve no skill, just because the skill set they involve is different.

Some of them, how you design the stuff you own affects the money you make and the speed of leveling up. Other games are strictly based on timing, but you have to try to guess the right timing for yourself to make the most out of the games. If you select the wrong times for when you will be back on (and don't make it), you can lose a lot of money.

There are many games that actually do take more direct skills too, word games and various things. Fast IQ games, etc.

You know MMORPG's take nearly no skill either. Your power is based more on how long you can be online than anything else, so trying to say that the Facebook games take no skills is a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black.

Posted: Jan 10th 2010 9:04AM (Unverified) said

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I don't really get the problem with playing facebook games. How is it any different than playing say, solitaire? It's something to do when you're bored. You can spend as much or as little time doing it as you want.

Sometimes you don't feel like devoting the time or energy to logging into your MMO/Single player/whatever of choice, and just want to spend a few minutes decorating a cafe, or sending cows to your old school friends, or whatever.

I'm guilty of playing them myself. I usually play them while doing something else though. Such as, if I am sitting waiting for my party to arrive or whatever in my MMO, I will often pull up a FB game to plonk away at while I wait. It beats staring into space.

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