FarmVille is a real-time farm simulation game played by over 82 million active users on Facebook. Yes, for those of you who don't know FarmVille, you read that correctly: A real-time farm simulation game played by over 82 million people. The game's popularity exploded since starting just under one year ago in June 2009. The game started as an application through Facebook only, which helped the game go viral. But, it's the addiction that keeps people playing at all times of the day. And it's the addiction that has many people playing during work and infecting the lives of cubicle employees. Employers are taking notice.
Take a look at these facts on FarmVille usage:
- FarmVille has more users than Twitter (source)
- More than 1 out of every 5 of the 350+ million Facebook users plays FarmVille.
- 1% of the population of the world is an active FarmVille user.
- Only 20 million more people watched Super Bowl XLIV (100m+) than play FarmVille
- The most TV viewers the World Series had in 2009 was Game 4 at 22.8 million. FarmVille beats the viewership of Game 4 by 60 million people.
There's no doubt the number of people that play FarmVille is shocking. But, it's the severe addiction these players are afflicted with that has many ruining their lives (like this person). There are accounts from addicts across the Internet that depict severely addictive behavior like:
- Having to play FarmVille immediately when they wake up, before showering, eating, etc.
- Dreaming about specific aspects of FarmVille while they sleep
- Playing during any spare moment they have during the day, including while they're at work
- Trying to quit playing but incapable of quitting
- Participating in My Life is FarmVille (mylifeisfarmville.com), a spoof of the F My Life website as a method of poking fun at their addiction, yet they are still incapable of quitting
Dr. Phil has even featured a Mom who neglected her children due to her FarmVille addiction that spiraled out of control. There's a decent chance you work next to someone like Dr. Phil's guest.
Late in 2009, Zynga, maker of FarmVille, made the game available outside the confines of Facebook.com. The FarmVille.com site still requires you to login via your Facebook login, but users are no longer required to visit Facebook.com as a pathway into the game. Why? Because an estimated 50% of employers block access to Facebook.com. Zynga needed to support the ever-growing number of addicts that play FarmVille at the office.
A simple search of "FarmVille blocked at work" brings up 184,000 search results. Most of which are forum posts from agitated eFarmers looking to eHarvest their eCrop at the office. But the number of FarmVille haters is growing as well. The 'Not Playing Farmville' page on Facebook is now up over 2 million members. Casandra Crouch, a member of the Not Playing Farmville page on Facebook wrote "Everyone's worried about the swine flu, but I think we need to be worried about this Farmville epidemic."
Though FarmVille is far and away the most popular game on Facebook right now, there are other games like Mafia Wars and Cafe World that also fill the void for the severely, severely bored (and pathetic). Many employers already block Facebook.com, and some will begin blocking FarmVille.com. But, the number of similar games that will soon be available in and outside of Facebook.com will make it nearly impossible for employers to keep up. That doesn't mean they won't try.
A company in Chicago, Illinois area recently installed software to track Internet usage among its employees. To their amazement, a shockingly high number of employees were playing FarmVille -- to the tune of 8% of its workforce. An anonymous manager at the company stated, "It's a rather sad state of affairs when you get the stats from this software. You kind of expect that a lot of employees go in to check their personal email, read the news, and maybe shop a little bit. But when you've got employees playing this ridiculous game for hours on end, a game as ridiculous as FarmVille, you have to start wondering about the idiots you've hired."
Just as this manager mentioned, the issue is not the fact that people are distracted from work while at the office. After all, Life in the Cubicle is a huge advocate of highly effective slacking. But, there is something incredibly depressing about 82 million people playing an online farming game. Perhaps it's the severe addiction these people have. Perhaps it's the fact that I receive annoying updates on Facebook regarding their FarmVille progress. Or, maybe it's just that I prefer good ol' fashioned web browsing...like riding the RedTube railroad. Besides, if you're going to be breaking rules while browsing at your workplace, you might as well be watching porn. It's far more respectable to get fired for watching someone get plowed than it is to be virtually plowing your crop.
> A true sign of the apocolypse: Teenager's self recorded YouTube video while he comments and plays FarmVille
> A website for FarmVille "freaks" that shows just how much time people waste on FarmVille - FarmvilleFreak.com
> CNN article on Zynga, maker of FarmVille
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Life in The Cubicle by Dudley B. Dawson
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Comments
I play all the time but I cannot say I disagree with anything said here. I can't even look at myself in the mirror.
82 million people are playing a game I've never heard of? I feel really old now.
I am also sick of the Farmville progress updates. Makes me want to unfriend people, when that is the first thing I see whenever I login to Facebook.
I have never enjoyed FarmVille but I have several friends who are hopelessly addicted. I had to hide FarmVille updates from my news feed. That helped a lot but these junkies still spam the world with status messages asking for bricks or rope or some other virtual item for their farms. I feel like I am in Amish country sometimes. I have taken to openly mocking them in my status messages.
If one more person asks me for help on their stupid farm I will personally go and fertilize their front porch. Of all the inane crap to waste time on I find it pretty hard to believe that a game that has no winner and no prizes gets that much attention. The unemployment rate must be much worse than I thought.
I play and for me that the fun in the game is not planting and harvesting (although it looks nice when your grapes or yellow poppis or other pretty plants are ready), but designing and building the farm, arranging the buildings, the lakes, the trees, etc.... it's a bit like a virtual LEGO, at least for me. Other people play for ribbons (so there are prizes) and gaining levels. It's not an agressive game, you have to co-operate with your neighbours to achieve certain tasks (like building a horse stable), so I don't really understand why so many people hate the game (that they probably don't even know well). And it's easy to hide the FV notifications in Facebook, so there is no need to know what your friends are up to on the farms.
For someone plugged into the youth culture, but also trying to run a business, I get the whole farmville thing, but it QUICKLY started stealing more time than I was willing to give. I tried to hold on for a week or two after I realized it was stealing all my time, but decided that my future was much more important than harvesting my next batch of Kumquats.
Dudley, agreed! Let's at least do something more interesting like read Life in the Cubicle if we are going to be goofing off at work!
FYI, Click "Hide all notifications from Farmville" To clear up those annoying requests.
i just reach the maximum level on farmville (70) and found this article so dam right and funny... i just shared on my facebook profile... lol
anyway let me say that are some tools like cheat engine and GridClicker who can help you to work a 24x24 farm from 45min to 5 min.
Oh yeah...Farmville. I know some addicts. I posted your article to my Facebook page for them to read. Great article. I didn't see the Farmville commercial link, so I thought I'd post it here for you: youtube.com/watch?v=odBDAcOEKuI
By the way, when you have time, can you send me a weathered board or a nail? ...Thanks! <--kidding
I agreed with some of the comments of this article, but not all; certainly this game is addicted, but it is also a good business exercise, as HR professional besides having fun playing the game, I learn about the strenghts and improvement areas of my neighbours, if companies used this kind of games for recruitment process, lots of surprises will arise and will be easier to decide if the candidates have the skills that the position and company require
I will admit that this post is a bit self-serving, but think that it would be very useful to members of the forum nonetheless. Whether your IT department actively blocks Farmville at the office or you'd simply like to conceal how much time you spend working with your farm, a personal VPN service is a great option to consider.
My company is currently in the trial phase of our service, Security Blanket, and can offer you a free account while we move toward our full launch this fall. A VPN allows you to route traffic directly through a new server, and it should allow you to circumvent any blocks that you are seeing at work.
Give it a shot at:
www.getsecurityblanket.com/learnmore
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