What's the most popular video game these days? If you think it's Halo: ODST, Batman: Arkham Asylum or Wii Fit, think again. While high profile console games are hogging the consumer spotlight, Zynga's FarmVille - a free-to-play Facebook game about tiling soil and tending crops in a virtual farm - has quietly amassed more than 58 million active players.
For anyone counting, that number easily surpasses the sales figures of the best-selling console video game of all time: Nintendo Wii juggernaut Wii Sports, which has only sold about 45.7 million copies to date.
The number of people who play FarmVille is still growing. Let's put it this way: More people play FarmVille than watch Oprah. Players have generated more than 40 million farms (20 times more than the actual number of farms in the United States), own more than 500,000 tractors, and conduct more than 80 million harvests each day. So far, $321,000 in real cash has been raised for charity through the selling of an exclusive kind of sweet potato in the game. FarmVille supplements its free-to-play model by letting players purchase special items in exchange for real-world currency.
Dear valued player, Following an incredible 11 years since its initial launch back in 2009, we are officially announcing the closure of the original FarmVille game on Facebook.
The video game industry is not one where originality reigns supreme. Sure, there are definitely Big Ideas that change the landscape of gaming, but for the most part publishers are content to slowly improve on stuff that’s already proven profitable.
But sometimes imitation goes beyond mere flattery to become a fad, when seemingly the entire video game world gets fixated on a single idea and starts churning out endless copies. We’re seeing it now with Fortnite and the Battle Royale craze, but this isn’t a new thing. Let’s blow in the cartridges and revisit some of the most potent fads in video game history.
I thought that too until he mentioned "paradigm change" with the addition of a competitive two-player mode. Obvious fumble, and we all do it, but it's a pet peeve that I should work on.
Thomas from Lizard Lounge writes, "What a time to be alive! Farming Simulator has released its eighth instalment, you too can discover the mysterious and glamorous life of a slice of bread, and someone has released a game about grass and it’s not even the interesting kind of grass. Walking simulators, have you heard of those? Games like Gone Home, Serena, The Beginner’s Guide, in which you walk around a world and stuff happens at you?"
several of my non gaming friends are addicted to this. I don't see the appeal