FarmVille: anything but worth your virtual currency

Virtual Goods
Since my last blog post explaining virtual goods and my prior judgments on them, I held a trial run to experience them for myself. I chose to redeem my Zynga game card with FarmVille because it seems to be the most popular online game among my Facebook friends. After my trial run, I am now confident about all of my prior judgments on virtual currency and online gaming. I now associate the words confusing, slow, commercial, wasteful and frustrating with FarmVille.

Confusing
The confusion began from the start of my trial run. It took me over 30 minutes to even figure out how to redeem my game card. I visited Facebook’s apps and games section, its credits and payments section, its help center and Zynga’s website. Annoyed, I went straight to FarmVille and finally found where to redeem my game card. Once I redeemed my game card, all $15 worth of credits went toward FarmVille! My original plan was to use $5 worth of credits toward three different Zynga games, receiving a more diverse opinion of virtual currency and online gaming. So much for that idea.



Slow
Confused on what I was supposed to do first, I planted some crops. I looked all around for a fast forward button (like on the Sims) because the crops take anywhere from four hours to three days before they can be harvested. I soon realized FarmVille follows actual time. If it says the wheat will be fully grown in 12 hours, you have to wait 12 hours. This is the same for animals, trees, barns, pastures and pretty much anything bought from the market. Why would you want to play a game that’s so drawn out? Players can pay Farm Cash, the currency in FarmVille, to “instantly grow” any items you if they don’t want to wait forever. Every aspect of this game revolves around money and buying more credits.

My farm after buying initial crops and goods from the market.

My farm three days later with crops ready to harvest finally.

Commercial

When playing FarmVille players are constantly bombarded with advertisements and opportunities to spend more Farm Cash. There are large strips full of advertisements along the top and right side of the gaming area. Aside from the outlying ads, windows persistently pop up in the gaming area pestering players to spend more Farm Cash. While players wait for their crops and goods to fully grow, they can even play FarmVille’s version of lottery games using Farm Cash (ex: scratch off tickets and drawings). Players receive challenges like in any normal game, but instead of actually completing those challenges players can pay to “complete now.” What’s the point in playing a game if you’re just going to buy your way to the top?

Challenge to complete. Notice the “skip now” option which requires Farm Cash.

Wasteful

Buying your way through a game is a complete waste of time and money. My $15 game card was transferred into $85 in Farm Cash. However, I was awarded $850 in Farm Cash because there was a redemption discount to receive 90% more. I have spent over $150 in Farm Cash, which is almost twice as much Farm Cash I would have received for my $15 game card had there been no redemption discount. It is like pulling teeth for me knowing that I wasted $15 on buying a virtual barn, cow and cow pasture. I prefer to spend money on tangible goods that I can actually use. Buying virtual goods for online gaming is pointless.



Frustrating
Seeing FarmVille posts overload my Facebook news feed has always annoyed me, so I was paranoid that I’d be “that guy” during my trial run. I careful tried not to share anything with my Facebook friends, which proved to be a harder task than anticipated. The game encourages players to share everything with their Facebook friends (ex: after planting crops and earning awards). Every time players sign in to FarmVille, it encourages them to send their Facebook friends gifts. 

Although my experience was frustrating, virtual currency and online gaming is still quite popular. I will never pay to play an online game like FarmVille again, but others certainly enjoy it. FarmVille has over 39 million “likes” on Facebook, so there is obviously a market for virtual goods.