Farmville

I wanted to write about planting more fruit etc. I always get distracted by food/organic/farm related things in the news. Bear with me...
Watching Charlie Rose the other night shook my world. He interviewed Mark Pincus, the CEO of the greatest social gaming network. Zynga has just been voted Best Overall Startup Product of 2009. FarmVille was voted their Best App. (application for the uninitiated).
Farmville is at the top of their popularity list. Over 60 million “farmers”, more than in the real world. Grow delicious fruits and vegetables and raise adorable animals on your very own farm!
Where does this virtual interest come from? Because you can grow and harvest in no time? Without sweat and risks like bad weather? And you won’t get your hands dirty? So here I am on my blog telling you how we toiled the soil, brought lambs into the world, and plucked chickens. My avatar: the new Virtual Farmer’s Wife.
Farmville is game where you can farm with your friends, a social network. Got it? What’s wrong with that?
All these games are playable on Facebook. No wonder people withdraw from the real world and chose an online, virtual –may I say Ersatz- world? Remember the Tamagotchi of the late 90s? Where you could raise, feed and walk a dog? Sounds familiar? You probably guessed that I’m not a gaming or virtual reality person. “People really need to do something with each other” (Mark Pincus).” You don’t say!
You start off with crop ready to harvest. For that you get gold coins…without having to bother going to the market. Fallow land is plowed in a second. You can buy new seeds at the market and sow immediately. After ten minutes, soybeans are 2 % grown: Hey, Presto! Instant gratification!
For the rest of my article go to Opednews.com. See link on the right, please.