[HN Gopher] Zynga shuts down FarmVille after 11 years
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Zynga shuts down FarmVille after 11 years
Author : azhenley
Score : 146 points
Date : 2021-01-01 12:22 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| richardfey wrote:
| Let's read now how to whitewash game addiction design..
| Can_Not wrote:
| Hopefully all the farmville clones marketing themselves as
| simcity clones are next?
| ransom1538 wrote:
| I do not understand the legal consequences of this. There were
| whales that paid thousands to have items in the game - those just
| vanish?
|
| Edit: These whales took the game seriously. "Meet you at the
| office to discuss something" serious. I expect a class action
| very quickly. Disclosure: worked at zynga.
| Jach wrote:
| What did you do at Zynga? It's surprising to think any gamer
| let alone an employee at a game studio (let alone a studio
| where whale hunting is the dominant business model) would think
| this is a new phenomenon and be confused in any way about what
| happens next. But anyway, nothing happens -- the servers shut
| down, the game is no more, no one gets sued. I don't even have
| to go find the EULA to be sure that it contains a clause about
| waiving class action rights in case anyone wanted to try.
| FarmVille isn't the first game and won't be the last game to do
| this. If anything, it's rather refreshing to see a non-gacha
| game in the long chain of shutdowns.
| darkerside wrote:
| The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang explores this
| topic very well
| mst wrote:
| The question is who would they sue. I mean, the process seems
| to've been roughly
|
| - Apple decided not to support Flash on mobile
|
| - Everybody else decided to try and deprecate Flash as a
| browser plugin
|
| - Adobe EOLed Flash
|
| - Facebook EOLed support for Flash games
|
| - Zynga EOLed FarmVille
|
| "Whose fault this actually is" seems tricky enough to determine
| morally, let alone legally.
| tomaszs wrote:
| It is interesting since it is not pure EOL. I mean, if
| Microsoft discontinues support for Windows it does not force
| you to uninstall it. And with Flash it is exactly the case.
| Each other day it prompts me to uninstall it even while I
| didn't ask for any of such support.
|
| It seems like Adobe gave itself permission to control what is
| on my computer. But does it really have authority to do so?
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Actually, all Adobe-provided flash distributions will
| refuse to run past a certain date. You'll have to go back a
| few versions to find one compiled without the kill switch.
| To use it, you'll literally have to run it in a VM on an
| outdated OS with the system time set back a few years.
| blibble wrote:
| or just patch the check out?
|
| I'm surprised someone hasn't done that already?
| tomaszs wrote:
| Thanks, I didn't know that. Seems like Adobe took
| enormous effort to kill all software written with Flash.
| While I understand some security concerns I can not stop
| thinking it is just another way to cripple the web.
| Obviously propertiary app platforms gain a lots with this
| move.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| How do proprietary platforms gain a lot with Adobe
| killing Flash? Flash itself _was_ proprietary. And Adobe
| is advocating for a _not proprietary_ alternative that
| was recently released and is called HTML5.
|
| Sure, killing Flash sucks for all the games, but Adobe
| isn't really doing anything illegal.
| benibela wrote:
| What about the standalone flash version, "projector"?
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Theres been games that have ported over multiple platforms.
| Take for example Habbo Hotel. Started off with Shockwave,
| then before that EOL'd they rewrote it in Flash, and now they
| are working on a Unity web assembly based rewrite. I think
| the reality is FarmVille isn't as popular as it once was. I
| haven't heard of anybody playing it in years. Funny how games
| got people to be far more active on Facebook but their usage
| died down significantly over time. With how addictive those
| games were for some its probably for the best.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Also Habbo Hotel is like one three applications the company
| has to support, so porting it to new platforms is
| reasonable.
|
| Zynga has a dozen high-performing games currently running,
| the original Farmville isn't one of those.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| You are probably right although its parent company does
| own several other companies as well.
| sigotirandolas wrote:
| Morally, shouldn't it clearly be Zynga's fault, since the
| game was designed so that it _only_ runs on top of a
| technology stack that can not be replicated by third parties
| _and only they_ are technically capable of changing this
| design?
| theshrike79 wrote:
| So should companies who provide software and devices worth
| MILLIONS to factories also port those from DOS 4.something
| to newer operating systems?
|
| Because they don't. A friend had to source BIOS chips for
| fried ones for an out of warranty CNC machine from around
| the world just to not have it fail completely.
| m1gu3l wrote:
| Software developers now have a moral obligation to make
| sure their code is ready to run on any future tech stack?
| Sounds .... not correct.
| sigotirandolas wrote:
| No, you don't have a moral obligation for it to run in
| any future tech stack. But it should be able to run in
| the same tech stack it was running before, or provide
| some way to interoperate. The game shouldn't be designed
| in a way that makes it possible for someone else to
| unilaterally shut down the game with no recourse.
|
| To illustrate, if FarmVille were an offline game that
| costed $1000, I could still set up a Windows XP computer,
| install Flash, and play it. It's not trivial, but it's
| very doable and legal.
|
| But instead, actual FarmVille is designed so that it
| needs an online infrastructure (so far so good, it's a
| core part of the game after all), _but by design this
| infrastructure can only be provided by Zynga_. You can 't
| replicate it even if you want to.
| watwut wrote:
| By this logic, making roblox games is immoral?
| sigotirandolas wrote:
| I'm not very familiar with Roblox, but if I understand
| it, it's an online platform that allows others to build
| games on top of it, and like Farmville the servers are
| exclusively provided by Roblox.
|
| In this case, I would say the moral fault lies mainly in
| Roblox, since they are the ones providing the platform
| and hence making the decision to exclusively provide the
| servers (and that moral fault has not yet happened, it
| would only happen if when they shut down they don't
| provide an alternative).
|
| If you are someone building on top of Roblox, I don't
| think you deserve the same amount of fault, but it's
| certainly something you have to consider. It's also a
| risk in that building on top of this design leaves you
| open to being de-platformed (like, for example with the
| iOS Store if Apple doesn't like your application).
|
| For what it's worth, I don't think Roblox or Zynga _are_
| immoral because of this, just that on this particular
| topic they are morally faulty.
|
| My bar for what should be acceptable as a recourse is
| also not very high. Providing any form of alternative
| like LAN play, closed-source server software,
| specifications or interoperability with other software
| would be enough for me. The problem I see with the
| current situation is the "last resort recourse" there is
| now in most cases, reverse engineering, is legally shaky,
| generally against the terms of service, terribly
| complicated and expensive and not guaranteed to succeed
| if critical parts of the application are server-side.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| If they sell thousands of dollars worth of digital items
| then yes, they should have a moral obligation to support
| those customers. Particularly given the murky
| exploitative psychological tricks employed by these games
| to get customers in the first place.
| m1gu3l wrote:
| If the EULA says the value of said digital items is zero
| (as hinted at in some comment further up) then I can
| agree that we disagree.
| jhbadger wrote:
| It may be _legal_ to steal digital items from users
| because of antiquated laws that don 't recognize digital
| items as items worthy of protection, but it certainly
| isn't _moral_.
| pmontra wrote:
| Let's explore some possibilities.
|
| 1. Should Zynga buy back those items at a lower price
| because they are used items?
|
| 2. What happens to cars (because we love car analogies)
| when the manufacturer stops building spare parts? In this
| case they are either collected from old cars or somebody
| else build those parts. Maybe should Zynga at least try
| to sell the game infrastructure with data? That would be
| like relying on third party spare parts but the car keeps
| going. Of course if nobody buys the game, maybe even for
| free, that's it
|
| 3. Other ideas?
|
| By the way, this isn't the first time an online game
| shuts down and players lose everything, right?
| jhbadger wrote:
| When Microsoft closed their cloud-based ebook business in
| 2019, they refunded 100% of the money to the people who
| lost access to the books they bought. This was the
| correct response to shutting down servers.
|
| https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a27021744/mic
| ros...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > When Microsoft closed their cloud-based ebook business
| in 2019, they refunded 100% of the money to the people
| who lost access to the books they bought.
|
| They probably had different terms of sale; buying books
| contingent on an external service is less attractive than
| buying in-game items contingent on the game.
|
| > This was the correct response to shutting down servers.
|
| Depending on the terms of sale, it may have been the
| minimum legally required response.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Space Cadet for Windows that we all miss would like to
| have a word....
| ballenf wrote:
| This is not tricky in the slightest. All the points you make
| are distractions from the central concept of what people
| understand purchasing something to mean.
|
| The computers these people played on with auto-updates
| disabled, would continue to support Flash for eternity.
|
| Your points would be valid if Zynga said "the thing you
| bought isn't going to run on new devices". But what they're
| saying is "we're breaking the thing you bought because not
| very many people can still give us money."
|
| Purchases without a "XX years' functionality" label should be
| required to be functional in perpetuity or refunded.
| fractionalhare wrote:
| _> "Meet you at the office to discuss something" serious._
|
| Sorry, is this a reference to something?
| sgpl wrote:
| I think the original post is referring to the fact that they
| worked at zynga and as per their experience 'whales' met with
| or wanted to meet with zynga staff to discuss aspects of the
| game with zynga staff.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > There were whales that paid thousands to have items in the
| game - those just vanish?
|
| Yup.
|
| > These whales took the game seriously. "Meet you at the office
| to discuss something" serious. I expect a class action very
| quickly.
|
| Very sure the terms of sale for those items made them
| contingent on the continuation of the service, which was
| expressly in Zynga's discretion. Selling added privileges
| related to another service that only survive as long as the
| base service is offered is fairly routine; there's nothing
| novel happening here, even prior to online games with premium
| items (of which this is not the first to shut down, anyhow.)
| jgalt212 wrote:
| this is, in a nutshell, why I never "buy' ebooks.
| larrywright wrote:
| I tend to favor ebooks for things that I know have a
| shorter shelf life. Especially technology stuff. There are
| books I may read again in 10 or 20 years, but technology
| books are outdated within a couple of years at most. It
| seems wasteful to get them on paper.
| ineedasername wrote:
| I generally avoid them for reference books, but for novels
| since I very rarely re-read them. I'm willing to make the
| trade-off for convenience and (sometimes) lower prices, but
| I go into it eyes open knowing the risks.
|
| I do worry about things like Steam though, which unless the
| game is available DRM-free from GOG, may be the only place
| you can buy the game-- or at least no different in terms of
| DRM lock in and risk of the platform shutting down than
| other platforms like Epic or Origin etc.
| dehrmann wrote:
| I'd be more worried about this if I ever reread books.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Plenty of vendors sell DRM-free ebooks in widely-supported
| formats (PDF, ePub); most, IME, publishers that sell
| directly do, it's the separate big stores that tend to have
| DRM-infested content.
|
| Actually, many of publishers selling directly not only sell
| DRM free, but you get a variety of formats when you
| purchase, rather than purchasing separately by format.
| fullshark wrote:
| I didn't mind renting videos and I don't mind "renting"
| ebooks for an indiscriminate amount of time. The
| convenience is worth it, having to store every book you
| purchase comes with costs too.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| This is entirely dependent on whether the ebooks are DRM
| Free or not.
|
| I prefer audiobooks, but I have a large collection of them
| which which will be mine forever, no matter what any
| retailers decide.
| mrkurt wrote:
| It's worth stripping DRM off your Kindle books if you
| have a large library. Pretty easy too!
| misiti3780 wrote:
| Where do you buy them from>?
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Downpour.com, Libro.fm, and Audiobooksnow.com are my go-
| to's (the last of these has a tiny handful of DRM'd
| titles, so check for a "Downloadable" symbol). Each of
| these has subscription memberships which you should take
| advantage of; you can cancel at any time, so I usually
| subscribe, buy, and cancel all at once when I want a
| book.
|
| Google Play audiobooks are also DRM-Free, but tend to be
| more expensive.
|
| I do also _occasionally_ buy from Audible, when a book
| isn 't available anywhere else. You can strip the DRM
| with ffmpeg once you know the key for your account. But
| most audiobooks can be had natively DRM-Free if you shop
| around a bit.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| Unless they come DRM free and downloadable outside the
| service, I consider them "rentals"
|
| But for those that are, Calibre keeps those nicely
| organized.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Yeah agreed. Never purchase those that needs a reader or
| something. Of course there are programs to extract the
| pdf files but it's always a bit too much for me.
| ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY CHARGE ALMOST THE SAME AS A REAL
| BOOK.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| They are good if they are in plain pdf format though.
| Keyframe wrote:
| Depends how you look at it. O'reilly sub is a good value
| even if it's 'rental' only. If only one could read/access
| them on kindle.. but that's another, yet related topic.
| Marqin wrote:
| Why not? When you buy ebooks you can download the PDF and
| even print it for yourself as backup.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| Oh. Why not offer non DRM formats to begin with because I
| am paying equal to or more than the paperback price of a
| book and not some bullshit license and shit. OP is saying
| he/she refuses to accept the whole renting/licensing
| shenanigans in ebooks. If Apple can sell you a non DRM
| mp3 for $.99 a pop, why the fuck does it need DRM for an
| eBook. ?
|
| Your only option is to either buy a paperback or pirate
| and downloading on kindle and then finding a PDF and then
| printing it should not happen to a paying customer.
| ineedasername wrote:
| DRM is often the choice of the publisher, not the
| retailer. (Amazon makes it very difficult to get a DRM-
| free version though, even when the publisher has
| authorized it)
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| That depends very much on where you buy your ebooks.
| extrememacaroni wrote:
| I too think it's preposterous that it's somehow okay for
| companies to simply make disappear things you've bought/spent
| money on/anything like that.
|
| This is the main reason I avoid games like this. It's just a
| trap, nothing keeps the developer from retiring the game
| whenever it feels like, nothing keeps the developer from
| releasing an update that completely changes how the game plays.
| If you like a game now, next week they can rebalance it and
| introduce microtransactions and that's... perfectly okay it
| seems?
| trash3 wrote:
| Reminds me of me of the Green Kayle skin I bought in League
| of Legends almost a decade ago. Pricks changed the base
| design of the model and did so for the paid skin as well.
| jabl wrote:
| Seems to be a common pattern. Eg in world of
| tanks/warships, there are "premium" tanks/ships you can buy
| for money and which are slightly better than the free
| vehicles at the same tier.
|
| While they are decent enough to not reduce the specs of
| stuff people have paid for, what they do is boost other
| vehicles and introduce new ones, which over time has the
| same effect.
| Santosh83 wrote:
| If you don't pay for physical products or tangible/useful
| services, then that's what happens. But look at it the bright
| side. The kind of people who burn cash on games would have
| instead thrown them on drugs, cigarettes, online gambling, or
| something even worse had these avenues never existed.
| Bakary wrote:
| The trump card of video game addiction is accessibility (in a
| sense online gambling and game addiction are functionally the
| same)
|
| It's not easy to relinquish access to a computer and phone
| these days
| Retric wrote:
| Many people where caught unawares by video game addiction.
| Cultures convey the dangers of drugs and gambling quite
| effectively allowing many susceptible people to avoid them,
| but IAP where a very new thing.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Since they weren't able to buy them any more since November it
| looks like they gave people at least a month to enjoy their
| purchases.
| lacker wrote:
| Plenty of games have shut down after selling virtual goods.
| FarmVille did not invent the concept of selling virtual things
| for real money. I doubt a lawsuit will go anywhere.
| [deleted]
| patrec wrote:
| On the assumption that almost everyone would be better without
| Farmville in their lives and that such a loss might at least
| get some of them to reconsider the wisdom of their behavior,
| there would be a certain irony if such a class action suit were
| to be successful.
| hshshs2 wrote:
| life isn't about choosing only the things that are good for
| you
| willis936 wrote:
| To play devil's advocate: addiction fills a void in an
| unfulfilling life. Arguably computer games are better than
| drugs and the root cause of the sad life is not the addictive
| substance.
|
| All that said, I shed no tears for any comeuppance that gets
| delivered to those who willfully profit off of the misfortune
| of others.
| dehrmann wrote:
| I don't think that these games are actually addicting.
| Habit-forming, for sure, but the way people lose interest
| makes me think it's something else.
| [deleted]
| patrec wrote:
| > To play devil's advocate: addiction fills a void in an
| unfulfilling life.
|
| Maybe so, but one would hope that even as far as self-
| destructive vices are concerned it's possible to pick
| something with more upside than Farmville addiction.
| carlivar wrote:
| Big Tech optimizing dopamine addiction makes your drugs
| analogy quite accurate.
| bob33212 wrote:
| If they read the user agreement they would see that the cash
| value of those items was zero. It is very similar to frequent
| flyer miles. Their value is zero. Delta can make 1 billion
| miles worth a diet soda tomorrow if they want.
| kens wrote:
| I figured someone in this thread should look at the terms of
| service. It says that Zynga owns the items and you're allowed
| to use them while the service is offered (5). It also says that
| their maximum liability is the amount you paid in the past 180
| days (14). They make no promises or guarantees that the service
| will always be available and may withdraw services for business
| or operational needs (13).
|
| Specifically, it says "you do not own any Virtual Items that
| you obtained through our Services, regardless of whether you
| "earned" those Virtual Items or "purchased" them. Your Account
| and any related Virtual Items are owned by Zynga. Zynga gives
| you a limited license and right to use your Account and the
| related Virtual Items while we offer the Services."
|
| https://www.zynga.com/legal/terms-of-service
| [deleted]
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Is there a viable (paid) FV alternative for seniors?
|
| Loved one (senior) spent hours on FV. I noted thru FB that FV
| kept this person going during COVID. I want to buy/suggest
| alternatives to FV.
|
| Person does not play video games. Not even casual mobile games.
| Eye-hand coordination is not great. Person has iPhone and
| ultralite Mac. Spends a lot of time on FB
|
| What are good alternatives ?
| manirelli wrote:
| Check out stardew valley. It has some extra depth but you can
| really play however you want.
|
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/stardew-valley/id1406710800
| tsjq wrote:
| what does Zynga do these days .
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Mobile games. CSR2, Harry Potter, Empires & Puzzles, Words with
| Friends, Zynga Poker.
|
| Yearly revenue around $1 billion.
| rightbyte wrote:
| I kinda disgust me that he seems proud of pioneering selling in-
| game resources for cash feeding of feeble minded and children.
| paulpauper wrote:
| if you compare the share prices of fakebook and zynga, it is
| evident selling personal data is more lucrative than selling
| game tokens
| jabl wrote:
| Maybe there are other less shady ways of earning a living
| than selling people's privacy or profiteering of their
| addiction?
| [deleted]
| worker767424 wrote:
| Google and Facebook don't really sell personal data, and
| least not directly. They might buy some, and advertisers
| happily give them data, but I rarely hear about them actually
| selling it. They do let advertisers run ads that are targeted
| using this data, but that's not the same as "felling personal
| data." It's more like selling user attention.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I feel like had smartphones not come sooner Zynga could of
| reached a point where they would of outright bought out
| Facebook. Smartphones were just slowly becoming relevant
| during these years.
|
| I almost want to call it the Eternal September Part 2 when
| Facebook took off like wildfire on the last year or so of
| MySpace being relevant.
|
| Smartphones taking off specifically Android meant people
| could just play games on their phone and not have to wait to
| get home to a computer.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Well, you kind of need to deceive yourself in this way if you
| want to justify your work to yourself.
|
| Kind of easy if it makes you tons of money.
| dibujaron wrote:
| "it is difficult to make a man understand something when his
| salary depends on him not understanding"
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Indeed it is a very common pattern. People tend to believe
| whatever is convenient (read: self serving) for them to
| believe.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| It's just about the feedback loop. People were addicted to
| games long before micro-transactions.
|
| Tetris has sucked countless hours out of peoples' lives. Hell,
| I even almost lost a job because of Civilization 3. I'm
| completely unable to play "one more turn" style games in
| moderation.
|
| Mobile games are optimised so that players like to spend time
| playing the game, and have the option of exchanging money for
| time in-game. You can either grind (use time) or spend money
| (use less time).
|
| If people enjoy the game and want to spend money to get ahead,
| they have the option. No one is forcing payments, it usually
| goes badly for the game.
| watwut wrote:
| You hate all game companies in the same way? Or just the ones
| that make games that are not exactly for you?
| rightbyte wrote:
| Come on you know what I mean ...
| sergiomattei wrote:
| They built a widely used and loved product, why not be proud?
| prepend wrote:
| Should Cambridge Analytica love that its Facebook quizzes
| were widely used and loved?
|
| It's a bad product that people get addicted to, so I wouldn't
| want to work on it, much less be proud of it. It would be
| like being proud of inventing banner ads, or spam, or
| artificial trans fats, or telemarketing robocalls, etc etc
| pfisch wrote:
| I feel like what is ignored in these conversations is that
| the vast majority of users just play this game as an
| entertaining piece of art. ~1% of problem users get
| addicted to games, whether they are FarmVille or smash
| brothers.
|
| That is just the way it is. It isn't right to squash the
| freedom of the vast majority of people because a small
| subset of users lack self control.
| watwut wrote:
| > It's a bad product that people get addicted to,
|
| Every time I hear about people having issues with partner
| being addicted to gaming, the game in question is PC or
| console game. Typically competitive online one, sometimes
| single player. It is rarely mobile game, like I never heard
| people complain about partner being addicted to Farmville.
|
| But, somehow, those games get defended each time.
| ratww wrote:
| The problem here is not the addiction to the game itself,
| but rather to the fact that sometimes they become a
| gambling addiction issue, with all the issues it brings.
| It ends up being a money pit for some people, with the
| worst offenders spending thousands of dollars a month on
| pay-to-play mobile games.
|
| Gambling addiction is also something that's normally
| hidden from the partner, and mobile games are great at
| allowing that, so there's also this difference. The
| partner won't see the issue until it's too late.
| watwut wrote:
| The thread was about addiction and anyway, calling these
| gambling is a stretch. You do know about partners
| gambling and people do complain about it. The partner and
| kids are typically the person who get the most of
| consequences.
|
| But my other point was about hypocrisy. People here go at
| length hating on Farmville and talking about addiction,
| because Farmville is not cool in their social circles and
| is game they personally dont like.
|
| You do not get the same outcry about games that are
| actually the most frequently mentioned by people who deal
| with gaming addiction issues. Those games are mentioned
| either positively or not at all. And if you would call
| the people who play those games feeble minded, you would
| not ended up upvoted.
| antihero wrote:
| Heroin is also a widely used and loved product.
| sergiomattei wrote:
| How is heroin even remotely relevant to a Facebook game?
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| Same applies to drugs. Those game are micro-optimized to
| trick people into paying money for it. No one would ever say
| "The money I spent on farmville was well spent".
| wesleywt wrote:
| How do you know this? A Farmville player might have been
| proud of his/her farm? It might have given them hours of
| pleasure and joy. Why should you dictate what they should
| feel?
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Hell people who buy games literally say "I have no regret
| buying this sooner" I say it myself all the time!
| nefitty wrote:
| I sympathize with your feeling, but it's a little astonishing
| how easily "hacked" human brains are. I don't think you have to
| be feeble minded or a child to spend hundreds of dollars a week
| on digital avatars.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Ye, but most people are not falling for it. A very low share
| get bitten for real.
|
| "Up to 50% of revenue comes from 0.15% (15 in 10,000) of
| players"
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-to-play
|
| With 'feeble minded' I meant weak versus addiction. Maybe not
| the 100% correct term.
|
| The thing I don't like about online gambling is that it can
| be hidden by the addicts. I mean sure it is their money to do
| whatever with, but it might still be shady immoral practice
| to enable that, like casinos or Farmville.
| Jare wrote:
| A good time to remember this interview:
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2009/11/06/zynga-scamville-mark-pinku...
|
| > I did every horrible thing in the book to, just to get revenues
| right away.
|
| It's not specific to FarmVille, and I do agree that FarmVille
| deserves a place in history by turning player self-expression
| into a massively mainstream game feature.
| d99kris wrote:
| I guess one can assume Zynga didn't make enough money from
| FarmVille to justify porting it to a modern platform.
|
| I wonder if they considered a kickstarter or similar, to gauge
| the interest of their users to finance the porting.
| ncw96 wrote:
| They actually did make a mobile version, but it is not
| compatible with the old Flash version that was discontinued.
| jabl wrote:
| I guess Hay Day took over the farming game market on mobile.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| There were like 3-4 variants of Farmville 2 and FV3 is out in
| some countries:
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zynga.farm...
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| FarmVille probably lost its popularity. I can't remember the
| last I ever heard anybody talking about it, and I doubt a lot
| of people can remember. Its pretty much dead by now.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| A family member of mine got horribly addicted to FarmVille back
| in like 2008-2009. He would sneak off from the family to go
| upstairs to grab something and then we would find him there three
| hours later playing. He built up a huge farm and since it had the
| mechanic for visiting nearby farms became quite famous. Then one
| of his daughters, who was a freshman in college at the time, came
| home with a few of her friends. The family member mentioned
| FarmVille at one point and all these teenagers went "omg you are
| [his game name]?!?!?!" He quite literally became an in game
| celebrity for a time apparently. He quit a few months later and
| never went back.
| yashap wrote:
| FarmVille launched June 2009, so it probably wasn't 2008 :) But
| yeah, video game addiction is a real thing, I know lots of
| people who've been addicted to all sorts of games, to the
| detriment of their lives overall.
| therealx wrote:
| My favorite story: growing up, I was really good friends with
| this girl who's Mom was an Everquest dev (like, the first
| one.)
|
| Post-launch, she became so addicted to her own game, she had
| to quit her job and lived in a small apt, forgoing clothes
| and only eaing the easiest of food.
|
| At the time it was funny...
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Yup you are right. He got in right at the start.
| drzaiusapelord wrote:
| Sometimes when I see people showing off these vast and
| intricate minecraft structures, Sims games, animal crossing
| towns, etc I wonder what social toll it took to get there.
| There's a lot of applauding people throwing healthier aspects
| of their lives away for game addiction on places like reddit or
| facebook. The story of the addict ignoring his kids, jobs,
| health, etc almost never gets out. It did briefly for WoW when
| "warcraft wives" made a fuss, but that died out, I imagine who
| no small PR effort from Blizzard, and now game addiction is
| rarely talked about, which is odd, considering so many mobile
| games are pretty much casinos.
| whoknew1122 wrote:
| I sunk over $2,000 in a game that shut down abruptly (Marvel
| Heroes). It sucked. I had no recourse.
|
| But at the end of the day, I had well more than 2000 hours in the
| game. Which meant that my cost per hour of entertainment was less
| than $1. Which is really cheap as far as hobbies and
| entertainment goes.
|
| Does it suck that I can't go in any play an ARPG with any of the
| 50+ Marvel heroes I had and adore? Yes. But that's what you
| should expect when playing any game that operates as a service or
| has an always-online component.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| 1-2EUR/hour is my limit for "good value game" too. If I buy a
| $60 game, I expect at least 30 hours of fun, preferably 60.
|
| Similar with mobile games, when I notice I'm spending a hour a
| day in a mobile game for weeks in and out, It's OK to spend
| 10EUR on the gem package to make the game more fun.
| heimatau wrote:
| > I had well more than 2000 hours in the game. Which meant that
| my cost per hour of entertainment was less than $1.
|
| I remember when one could buy a game for $50 and play it for
| 250-400 hours (unlocking hidden things, playing with multiple
| friends with just my purchase). Roughly a dime for
| entertainment. In some cases, it was sub a penny USD.
|
| You have some expensive hobbies my friend.
| whoknew1122 wrote:
| Is it really expensive though?
|
| I don't go out to bars. Those nights out add up quickly. I'm
| not into cars, which is a large money sink. I don't go to the
| movies, which is typically $20+ per person for 2-ish hours of
| entertainment when it's all said and done.
|
| Adult hobbies are expensive. $2,000 spent across 4 years
| which gave me thousands of hours of enjoyment really isn't
| that expensive.
| heimatau wrote:
| > Is it really expensive though? Yes.
|
| > Adult hobbies are expensive. Depends on what you value.
|
| > $2,000 spent across 4 years which gave me thousands of
| hours of enjoyment really isn't that expensive. You spent
| the money, so you saw the value in it. I'd say it was a
| complete waste. For you, it's clearly not.
|
| Value is relative, that's my point.
| blackrock wrote:
| Not bad. It's only $500 per year, when you break it down.
|
| Cable TV costs $80/month, or about $1000/year.
|
| So if you didn't pay for Cable TV, then I would say that
| you saved money here.
| bluedino wrote:
| One summer I played Gauntlet Legends in the local arcade, I
| basically maxed out all of my characters, I probably had $200
| into it.
|
| One day the game crashed, and the repair guy stuck a new hard
| drive in the game, and I lost all my characters. :(
| thih9 wrote:
| I didn't realise that there were arcade games with save game
| support.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauntlet_Legends
|
| > Its unusual features for an arcade game included passwords
| and characters that could be saved, enabling players to play
| over the course of a long period.
| k__ wrote:
| _" first game at scale that leveraged big data"_
|
| Haha, yes, but not for the good of their customers.
|
| It was optimized for addiction and peer pressure.
| pram wrote:
| Flash games on Facebook feels very quaint now. It makes me
| remember all the other dead web 1.0 walled gardens like AOL
| games, Yahoo games, MSN games etc
|
| The crappy shovelware games live on though! Seems to be a
| resilient style of software, moving from platform to platform
| like a virus lol
| kumarvvr wrote:
| I hope this whole idea of game streaming and online only accounts
| for purchases has a permanent solution.
|
| Perhaps an non-profit controlled entity can be set up to transfer
| assets and management of such digital assets.
|
| Imagine losing all your Playstation games that are online only,
| because Sony went down the drain, or losing all your books
| because Amazon went belly up.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| > The real innovation of FarmVille was in making games accessible
| to busy adults, giving them a place to invest and express
| themselves and be seen by people in their lives as creative
|
| Zynga was ripping off games that were popular in places like
| china, they had zero innovation, not even in their slimy tactics
| to recruit users. They used to have those "invite 10 friends to
| be able to play" that everyone had back then. they abused every
| possible channel to the maximum degree, that's their only
| 'innovation'. They were the reason that facebook created rules
| that ban those shady tactics, even though they had a special
| agreement with facebook (basically so they can spam more than
| indies and competitors). And a lot of more shady antics i can't
| even remember, they were all discussed in facebook's old
| developer forum which has been shut down long ago.
|
| Zynga was not "the first" in anything
| harryf wrote:
| Remember wandering up to the Zynga booth at LeWeb years ago -
| perhaps 2010 - and asking them if employees at Zynga ever
| wondered if what the were doing might be evil or if the games
| were actually any good. It was unfair as the booth was actually
| manned by people from Dextrose AG who Zynga had just bought.
|
| To cap it off I made them watch this FarmVille parody which
| they were awkwardly amused by https://youtu.be/odBDAcOEKuI
|
| In retrospect I was being a righteous prick but I couldn't
| stand Zynga - their games or their addiction based business
| model.
| cyberlurker wrote:
| I did something similar to a Google employee once at a
| conference. Sorry to that person, I was also a righteous
| prick. Definitely not the right way to go about it.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| It's all about monitization bro.
| 32gbsd wrote:
| These articles exist to rewrite history for the winners. Total
| bs.
| kumarvvr wrote:
| For the love of god, I can never understand why this game became
| popular.
|
| I understand the pull of games and I am a gamer myself. However,
| compared to games like minecraft, this game was boring and absurd
| for me.
|
| Make digital farms, where's the fun in that?
|
| And I know intelligent, high calibre friends of mine spending
| hours on the game and hours talking about it.
|
| The sheer amount of lost productivity due to this game is
| astounding, and I say lost productivity because this damn game
| captured a whole lot of mindshare.
| watwut wrote:
| It was not game for you, it is that simple. Minecraft is boring
| too many people too.
|
| But productivity loss is exactly same as when playing other
| games. People discussing this game are no different then people
| who discuss other games.
|
| What is unique is the pure outrage at the idea that people
| might enjoy it from gamers I see in this thread. Not do much
| you, but the anger and insults targeted at people who like it
| are way more that I expected.
| chrisjs95 wrote:
| > Make digital farms, where's the fun in that?
|
| I mean you do that in Minecraft too haha.
| Lammy wrote:
| > For the love of god, I can never understand why this game
| became popular.
|
| Imagine it's 2011, you haven't played a video game since Space
| Invaders, and you trade your carrier-subsidized Cingular-
| branded RAZR in for a carrier-subsidized iPhone 4. The number 1
| app in the store is "Facebook" so you download it, sign up, and
| are suddenly spending all your time in their garden rekindling
| connections with everyone you ever knew. Seems like the perfect
| low-impact game to play with one finger on a smooth piece of
| glass, flipping back and forth between it and your FB Messages
| / comment-thread flamewars / etc.
| joveian wrote:
| It is an interesting setting that has been used successfully in
| other games as well, including Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley,
| and just recently Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin.
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