Gaming Goes Social: Farmville Thrives on Facebook

Farmville has enjoyed explosive growth since being introduced on Facebook on June 20, 2009. Currently, over 56 million people play the game each month according to an article published last week by USA Today. "For social networks, it's game on" details the killer combination of casual games and social networks. I suggest you read the article, as it offers great insights and statistics.

"An estimated 100 million people are recent devotees of social games such as FarmVille, Mafia Wars, Sorority Life and Bejeweled." the USA Today article explains. These games are easy to play and fun; and they're free for the most part. Yet the industry is generating significant revenue via micro-transactions of game add-ons as well as ad revenue from display banners.

For marketers, this is one more example of how important Facebook is becoming as a means to reach consumers. Marketing on Facebook is fishing where the fish are.

So it's quite apparent that I am not alone in my recent effort to reclaim time in reality that was temporarily lost to social gaming: read "How do we best spend our time?" In fact, a Google search of Farmville addict returns 170,000 results. And results on YouTube are significant as well, with admissions of addiction, Farmville interventions and even an interesting take on what Hitler would do if he found out about the rotten eggplants.

Personally, I'm happy I quit Farmville. The family and I actually planted a real farm this last weekend. Well, we built and installed three above-ground gardens. It was a lot of work and a great family activity. I will share more on my real-world farming adventure soon. Until then... have fun in the digital space, but stay well grounded in the real world.