There's a lot of validity to this argument, but Farmville is not unique. If you take his criteria and replace Farmville with World of Warcraft, most of it still holds:
(1) WoW is defined by obligation, routine, and responsibility;
(2) WoW encroaches and depends upon real life, and is never entirely separate from it;
(3) WoW is always certain in outcome, and involves neither chance nor skill;
(4) WoW is a productive activity, in that it adds to the social capital upon which Blizzard and Activision depend for their wealth;
(5) WoW is governed not by rules, but by habits, and simple
cause-and-effect;
(6) WoW is not make-believe, in that it requires neither immersion nor suspension of disbelief.
WoW does require more skill. And it is governed by rules not 'simple cause and effect' - but so is Farmville. WoW is also more immersive.
These differences are what make it a 'better' game to most gamers. But they don't change what the OP finds sociopathic about the game, namely that they're applications that use people’s sociability to control those people, and to satisfy their owners’ needs.
It is much more controlling, it just reaches a narrower audience. It is also equally social - the social interactions are arguably deeper and more meaningful, in fact.
I say this as someone who works in the field of online games (I run Kongregate). I do think the feeling of accomplishment and social satisfaction provided by games are powerful, and not totally positive. I also hope that the positive aspects of online game communities balance this out to some degree.
Edit: WoW succeeded in a competitive field largely on quality (and massive capital outlay). Farmville succeeded through the hyper-fast and skillful application of the A/B-testing 'lean startup' techniques widely admired and practiced by most readers of this site. If you hate it, it's worth thinking about how it came to exist.
More on Zynga testing (build it if people seem
to want it):
> So I say to the marketing person or the product manager, “Describe it in five words. It’s built. If six months from now we built every dream you have, how are you going to market it? Give me the five words.”
We’ll put that up. We’ll put up a link for five minutes saying, ” Hey! Do you ever fantasize about running your own hospital?” (laughter) And, well, maybe you have! In this economy, it’s the only growth area...
So first you try to get the heat around it, you see how much do people like it, then
Hey, good work with Kongregate. It's got a great concept and great execution, though (being a Street Fighter fan) I never really played much beyond Kongai myself.
Nevertheless, it is difficult to imagine seventy-three million people playing a game that isn’t fun to play, just to keep up with the Joneses.
I couldn't disagree more with this. Ever glimpsed at WoW guild politics? Many people get involved in this game because it's possible to keep up with the Joneses in-game, if not in real life. This is not a small nitpicking point. Games like these develop complicated social webs and social capital because they create a reality preferable to the one we live in, one in which anyone can see a path to success, a path that they are in control of. The real world is more ambiguous.
I was addicted to world of warcraft for about 18 months and I finally came to the conclusion that I was mostly using it as a "success surrogate." It was much easier for me to be successful in game than in real life, and the cycle time was much shorter. In an MMORPG you can achieve meaningful progress in your avatar in one weekend of solid grinding, but in real life to achieve meaningful results usually takes weeks, months or years of hard work. It was partly the immediacy of the rewards that made the game so compelling I think.
While it's cool to note that Obama's involved in social media, his appearance in this essay seems a bit tenuous. Roger Caillois is repeatedly quoted and torn down again. His definition of a game is suspect. I don't think immediately think of a game as "free from obligation." To me, it smells like a straw man.
All that aside, I think his analysis of how Zynga made/makes money is pretty fair. The idea of social capital is crucial. But, why is Zynga depicted as evil--even sociopathic--for utilizing that social capital, while Facebook appears to be treated neutrally, and our government officials are portrayed as doing the right thing?
Yes, but with my Facebook friends I have taken a decidedly different tack. That is, friends don't let friends play Farmville. My friends don't play Farmville because my friends don't play Farmville. If someone where to, they would be ridiculed. :)
If Farmville is laborious to play and aesthetically boring, why are so many people playing it? The answer is disarmingly simple: people are playing Farmville because people are playing Farmville.
Very true from what I have seen. Nobody just starts playing something like Farmville unless someone else has asked them to.
It is kind of sickening to think about how much time is lost to crap like this.
>It is kind of sickening to think about how much time is lost to crap like this.
That's rather judgmental re: leisure time. Are you sickened by the time "lost" by people following or playing sports, or reading novels, or watching movies?
At least you noticed that you were wasting time. But the reason why people keep playing is not because of the others. The others are the reason why they start, they keep on playing because of the fake sense of achievement this game delivers.
See Jessse Schells talk from DICE for details.
It's an interesting experiment to see how long you can try one of the zynga offerings without creating some sort of invitation to a friend. These guys have really squeezed the heck out of their viral loops.
This article helps articulate this deeply creepy feeling I have about where online business is going.
Does anyone else think using "addictive" or "habit-forming" to describe your product design goals is deeply immoral?
And yet this probably appears in a lot of Powerpoints pitched every day in the Valley. I had to sit through just such a presentation a few weeks ago, and I work at a non-profit. The whole thrust of this Valley drone's presentation was that he could get users to value anything, any behavior that the customer wanted, by means of psychological tricks and social rewards. Now that may not even be true, but when your Powerpoint starts referencing Pavlov and Zimbardo I think you have to take a look in the mirror.
I find the idea of "sociopathic applications" mentioned in the second last paragraph interesting. I wonder what other applications could be included in that. World of Warcraft? I guess even twitter and facebook are in extreme usage. There's no attempt by those companies to stop people excessively using their services, beyond the point where its beneficial to the individual and only beneficial to the company.
Indeed, concise it wasn't. So much filler text such as "With this in mind," "To illustrate,"
This:
"One might speculate that people play Farmville precisely because they invest physical effort and in-game profit into each harvest."
could have been:
"People may play Farmville because they invest effort and in-game profit into each harvest."
It is a horribly written article. Those extra adjectives all over the place offer absolutely nothing. One might speculate that if the comments here on this site - Hacker News - were written deliberately with such very many adjectives, punctuated through out each paragraph and sentence, you may imagine that perhaps one would precisely spend an entire laborious day completing in the end simply a singular article within that languishing timeframe.
Yes, social obligation is an important factor in Farmville's growth, but it's not the main reason people continue playing. Short answer; they enjoy it. The game's basic cycle of "do action x to get a reward and unlock action y which gives a bigger reward and alloys you to do action z..." is one that's optimized to deliver predictable squirts of dopamine into human brains, and is also a mechanic that appears in numerous other games, including more respectable genres like RPGs and strategy games. Farmville and other social games just show you don't need to wrap it in a layer of strategy or skill, though it does mean that people tire of it quite quickly.
Reading this is like watching an alien race trying to figure out why these hairless primates are so fond of naked gymnastics. "It appears to be for procreation, but they frequently use contraceptives, so that can't be it. They're generally lazy, so exercise can't be the motivation. I know! It must be a complicated sense of social obligation."
Let me be the first to jump in here and express a certain degree of uncertainty with what the author has written.
While it does seem to be that, in Western societies, the societal pressure to cooperate and reciprocate would encourage people to keep playing, in Asian cultures (read: China), games like FV are based less on cooperation than on "sticking it" to other people.
The local version of FarmVille here is called "Stealing Vegetables" by pretty much everybody who plays it, and you get ahead by sabotaging or stealing your neighbours' vegetables in addition to growing and protecting yours. Kitchen games involve sabotaging ingredients, parking games stealing spots, and so on.
Indeed, a group of us were playing an iPhone game similar to FV called "We Rule", and while it was interesting for the first couple of days, it became so mind-numbingly dull that even the risk of annoying our friends couldn't keep us on the game. Cooperation only motivates so far.
So, while the author has (in a very long and winding way) hit on some interesting points about these games, I think there's still something else at work. My current inclinations all lie in how simple tasks give rewards immediately (see 4square "hey you logged in, get a badge!" or stack overflow "You posted! here's badge!"). By constantly adding new things (WoW even spends lots of energy adding in new mounts, quests, and whatnot) you keep that reward loop active and keep me hoping for more.
"Does this mean we are becoming better citizens? Ninety-seven percent of American teenagers play video games.[4] Does this mean they will become more politically active? Before you dismiss these questions, keep in mind that in October 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama became the first U. S. Presidential candidate to advertise in video games"
I stopped reading at this lapse in logic.
Besides, how can one cite Caillois without citing Huizinga. Caillois admits his project is little more than a commentary on Homo Ludens.
I see this phrase regularly, but I don't really understand it. Does it mean you read no further into the article, or did you actually read more, if not all, but use this phrase to signify that you disagree.
I find the idea of only reading until you find something you disagree with curious. It seems to indicate a belief that one flaw in a person's work invalidates the remainder of that work. Surely you don't consume opinion in a binary fashion, either accepting or rejecting it in its entirety, but rather you have the ability to consider each point and reject some and accept others based on their merit?
[pulls rant up short]
Not meaning to single you out, you just happened to use that phrase at the same time that I had time to reply
In brief: Farmville is popular because in entangles users in a web of social obligations.
People are built to be social and be entangled in social obligations with other people. This may be less reflected in modern life than before but the tendency to get involved in that is nothing but gone. Earlier, these social obligations had a big role in reducing risk of famine and ensuring the continuum of life by making people do things together and keeping them doing that.
I do not like
Zynga Farm Spam..
I do not like spam, Sam-I-am.
I do not like them
in my house.
I do not play them
with a mouse.
I do not like Spam
here or there.
I do not like them
anywhere.
I do not like
Zynga Farm Spam.
I do not like it,
Sam-I-am.
After lots of fluff, it delivers some good insights into why the game succeeded, then calls on our moral obligations to stand up to sociopathic corporations?
Sure, because BS on user interface is more important than logic, automata theory, and complexity. If you don't like the Science in Computer Science you can always go to the Humanities side of the campus and engage in intellectual circle jerks with a buch of self-important morons.
After reading this, I wish I could blog better. I also wish the author of this article could write better, because he seems to make a lot of the same mistakes I make.
Some good points, and a thread of relevance here, but aside from a general call to analysis I didn't see a lot to chew on. The best line in the whole piece was We are obligated to examine what we are doing, whether we are updating our Facebook status or playing Call of Duty, because the results of those actions will ultimately be our burden, for better or for worse
The worst line came soon after, democracy depends upon demophilia, or love of the people. I'll leave the analysis of that one as an exercise to the reader.
[+] [-] jim-greer|16 years ago|reply
(1) WoW is defined by obligation, routine, and responsibility;
(2) WoW encroaches and depends upon real life, and is never entirely separate from it;
(3) WoW is always certain in outcome, and involves neither chance nor skill;
(4) WoW is a productive activity, in that it adds to the social capital upon which Blizzard and Activision depend for their wealth;
(5) WoW is governed not by rules, but by habits, and simple cause-and-effect;
(6) WoW is not make-believe, in that it requires neither immersion nor suspension of disbelief.
WoW does require more skill. And it is governed by rules not 'simple cause and effect' - but so is Farmville. WoW is also more immersive.
These differences are what make it a 'better' game to most gamers. But they don't change what the OP finds sociopathic about the game, namely that they're applications that use people’s sociability to control those people, and to satisfy their owners’ needs.
It is much more controlling, it just reaches a narrower audience. It is also equally social - the social interactions are arguably deeper and more meaningful, in fact.
I say this as someone who works in the field of online games (I run Kongregate). I do think the feeling of accomplishment and social satisfaction provided by games are powerful, and not totally positive. I also hope that the positive aspects of online game communities balance this out to some degree.
Edit: WoW succeeded in a competitive field largely on quality (and massive capital outlay). Farmville succeeded through the hyper-fast and skillful application of the A/B-testing 'lean startup' techniques widely admired and practiced by most readers of this site. If you hate it, it's worth thinking about how it came to exist.
[+] [-] wallflower|16 years ago|reply
> So I say to the marketing person or the product manager, “Describe it in five words. It’s built. If six months from now we built every dream you have, how are you going to market it? Give me the five words.”
We’ll put that up. We’ll put up a link for five minutes saying, ” Hey! Do you ever fantasize about running your own hospital?” (laughter) And, well, maybe you have! In this economy, it’s the only growth area...
So first you try to get the heat around it, you see how much do people like it, then
http://grattisfaction.com/2010/01/how-zynga-does-customer-de...
[+] [-] iron_ball|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sukotto|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baguasquirrel|16 years ago|reply
I couldn't disagree more with this. Ever glimpsed at WoW guild politics? Many people get involved in this game because it's possible to keep up with the Joneses in-game, if not in real life. This is not a small nitpicking point. Games like these develop complicated social webs and social capital because they create a reality preferable to the one we live in, one in which anyone can see a path to success, a path that they are in control of. The real world is more ambiguous.
[+] [-] unknown|16 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] piguy314|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] weilawei|16 years ago|reply
All that aside, I think his analysis of how Zynga made/makes money is pretty fair. The idea of social capital is crucial. But, why is Zynga depicted as evil--even sociopathic--for utilizing that social capital, while Facebook appears to be treated neutrally, and our government officials are portrayed as doing the right thing?
[+] [-] SlyShy|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barmstrong|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] duck|16 years ago|reply
Very true from what I have seen. Nobody just starts playing something like Farmville unless someone else has asked them to.
It is kind of sickening to think about how much time is lost to crap like this.
[+] [-] xsmasher|16 years ago|reply
That's rather judgmental re: leisure time. Are you sickened by the time "lost" by people following or playing sports, or reading novels, or watching movies?
[+] [-] sliderr|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] watmough|16 years ago|reply
I've tried to get her to go out in the garden, but no avail!
[+] [-] ShardPhoenix|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akkartik|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] revorad|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neilk|16 years ago|reply
Does anyone else think using "addictive" or "habit-forming" to describe your product design goals is deeply immoral?
And yet this probably appears in a lot of Powerpoints pitched every day in the Valley. I had to sit through just such a presentation a few weeks ago, and I work at a non-profit. The whole thrust of this Valley drone's presentation was that he could get users to value anything, any behavior that the customer wanted, by means of psychological tricks and social rewards. Now that may not even be true, but when your Powerpoint starts referencing Pavlov and Zimbardo I think you have to take a look in the mirror.
[+] [-] jim-greer|16 years ago|reply
I notice that you have 2258 karma. I think it's safe to say that you've formed a habit or even addiction to HN, but hopefully a rewarding one.
[+] [-] zemaj|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jshen|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] apphacker|16 years ago|reply
This:
"One might speculate that people play Farmville precisely because they invest physical effort and in-game profit into each harvest."
could have been:
"People may play Farmville because they invest effort and in-game profit into each harvest."
It is a horribly written article. Those extra adjectives all over the place offer absolutely nothing. One might speculate that if the comments here on this site - Hacker News - were written deliberately with such very many adjectives, punctuated through out each paragraph and sentence, you may imagine that perhaps one would precisely spend an entire laborious day completing in the end simply a singular article within that languishing timeframe.
[+] [-] IsaacL|16 years ago|reply
Reading this is like watching an alien race trying to figure out why these hairless primates are so fond of naked gymnastics. "It appears to be for procreation, but they frequently use contraceptives, so that can't be it. They're generally lazy, so exercise can't be the motivation. I know! It must be a complicated sense of social obligation."
[+] [-] chipmunkninja|16 years ago|reply
While it does seem to be that, in Western societies, the societal pressure to cooperate and reciprocate would encourage people to keep playing, in Asian cultures (read: China), games like FV are based less on cooperation than on "sticking it" to other people.
The local version of FarmVille here is called "Stealing Vegetables" by pretty much everybody who plays it, and you get ahead by sabotaging or stealing your neighbours' vegetables in addition to growing and protecting yours. Kitchen games involve sabotaging ingredients, parking games stealing spots, and so on.
Indeed, a group of us were playing an iPhone game similar to FV called "We Rule", and while it was interesting for the first couple of days, it became so mind-numbingly dull that even the risk of annoying our friends couldn't keep us on the game. Cooperation only motivates so far.
So, while the author has (in a very long and winding way) hit on some interesting points about these games, I think there's still something else at work. My current inclinations all lie in how simple tasks give rewards immediately (see 4square "hey you logged in, get a badge!" or stack overflow "You posted! here's badge!"). By constantly adding new things (WoW even spends lots of energy adding in new mounts, quests, and whatnot) you keep that reward loop active and keep me hoping for more.
[+] [-] Jd|16 years ago|reply
I stopped reading at this lapse in logic.
Besides, how can one cite Caillois without citing Huizinga. Caillois admits his project is little more than a commentary on Homo Ludens.
[+] [-] cubicle67|16 years ago|reply
I see this phrase regularly, but I don't really understand it. Does it mean you read no further into the article, or did you actually read more, if not all, but use this phrase to signify that you disagree.
I find the idea of only reading until you find something you disagree with curious. It seems to indicate a belief that one flaw in a person's work invalidates the remainder of that work. Surely you don't consume opinion in a binary fashion, either accepting or rejecting it in its entirety, but rather you have the ability to consider each point and reject some and accept others based on their merit?
[pulls rant up short]
Not meaning to single you out, you just happened to use that phrase at the same time that I had time to reply
[+] [-] yason|16 years ago|reply
People are built to be social and be entangled in social obligations with other people. This may be less reflected in modern life than before but the tendency to get involved in that is nothing but gone. Earlier, these social obligations had a big role in reducing risk of famine and ensuring the continuum of life by making people do things together and keeping them doing that.
[+] [-] Adam503|16 years ago|reply
I do not like them in my house. I do not play them with a mouse. I do not like Spam here or there. I do not like them anywhere. I do not like Zynga Farm Spam. I do not like it, Sam-I-am.
[+] [-] zyb09|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barmstrong|16 years ago|reply
After lots of fluff, it delivers some good insights into why the game succeeded, then calls on our moral obligations to stand up to sociopathic corporations?
Did not see that coming.
[+] [-] amichail|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Rod|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|16 years ago|reply
Some good points, and a thread of relevance here, but aside from a general call to analysis I didn't see a lot to chew on. The best line in the whole piece was We are obligated to examine what we are doing, whether we are updating our Facebook status or playing Call of Duty, because the results of those actions will ultimately be our burden, for better or for worse
The worst line came soon after, democracy depends upon demophilia, or love of the people. I'll leave the analysis of that one as an exercise to the reader.
There just wasn't that much here.