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''FarmVille'' is a series of
agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...
-
simulation A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of Conceptual model, models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or proc ...
social network game developed and published by Zynga in 2009. It is similar to '' Happy Farm'' and ''Farm Town''. Its gameplay involves various aspects of
farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is use ...
land management, such as plowing land,
planting Sowing is the process of planting seeds. An area or object that has had seeds planted in it will be described as a sowed or sown area. Plants which are usually sown Among the major field crops, oats, wheat, and rye are sown, grasses and leg ...
, growing, and
harvest Harvesting is the process of gathering a ripe crop from the fields. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulse for harvest, typically using a scythe, sickle, or reaper. On smaller farms with minimal mechanization, harvesting is the most l ...
ing
crop A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. When the plants of the same kind are cultivated at one place on a large scale, it is called a crop. Most crops are cultivated in agriculture or hydropon ...
s, harvesting trees and raising
livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to ani ...
. The sequels ''FarmVille 2'' and ''FarmVille 3'' were released in September 2012 and November 2021. The game was available as an
Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia software platform used for production of animations, rich web applications, desktop applications, mobile apps, mobile games, and embedded web browser video players. Flash ...
application via the social networking website
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...
and
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
's
MSN Games MSN Games (also known as Zone.com - formerly known as The Village, Internet Gaming Zone, MSN Gaming Zone, and MSN Games by Zone.com) is a casual gaming web site, with single player, multiplayer, PC download, and social casino video games. Games ...
. It was previously available as a
mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...
for the iPhone,
iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a musi ...
, and
iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, ...
for a brief period in 2010. The game was free-to-play; however, to progress quickly within the game, players are encouraged to spend ''Farm Cash'' (in ''FarmVille'') or ''Farm Bucks'' (in ''FarmVille 2''), which are purchasable with real-world
currency A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general ...
. ''FarmVille'' was thus one of the first major
freemium Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium," is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical ...
games. After launching on Facebook in 2009, ''FarmVille'' became the most popular game on the site, and held that position for over two years. At its peak, in March 2010, the game had 83.76 million monthly
active users Active users is a measurement metric that is commonly used to measure the level of engagement for a particular product or object, by quantifying the number of active interactions from visitors within a relevant range of time (daily, weekly and m ...
. Daily active users peaked at 34.5 million. After 2011, the game began experiencing a considerable decline in popularity. By May 2012, the game was ranked as the seventh most popular Facebook game. As of April 30, 2016, its rank had fallen to the 110th most popular Facebook game as measured by daily active users, while ''FarmVille 2'' had climbed to 42. On September 27, 2020, Zynga announced that it would discontinue the first ''FarmVille'' on Facebook on December 31, 2020, as Facebook was to stop supporting games running on
Flash Player Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome as Shockwave Flash) is computer software for viewing multimedia contents, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming audio and video content created on the ...
—required by ''FarmVille''—on that day. Following the existing ''FarmVille 2'', ''FarmVille 3'' focuses on mobile devices.


Gameplay

Once players began a farm, they would first create a customizable avatar, which could be changed at any point. The player began with an empty farm and a fixed starting number of Farm Coins, the primary currency in the game. Players earned XP (
experience point An experience point (often abbreviated as exp or XP) is a unit of measurement used in some tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) and role-playing video games to quantify a player character's life experience and progression through the game. Experien ...
s) for performing certain actions in the game such as plowing land or buying items. At certain XP benchmarks, the player's level would rise. As the player obtained more items and progressed through levels, crops and animals would become available to them via the "market" where items could be purchased using either Farm Coins or Farm Cash. Farm Cash was earned by leveling up or completing offers, or purchased for real money. The main way a player earned Farm Coins, the less important of the two in-game currencies, was through harvesting crops or visiting their neighbors. The player would do this by paying coins for plowing a unit of land. This readied the land for planting seeds, which would eventually be harvested after a set amount of time. The amount of time it took for a crop to mature, and how much money a crop would yield when harvested, was dependent on the crop planted and was noted on its entry in the "market" dialog. They would wither, or they would be of no use when a crop-specific amount of time had elapsed, the amount of time being equal to 2.5 times the amount of time taken to grow the crop (for example, crops which took 8 hours to grow would wither after 2.5×8=20 hours). However, a player could use Farm Cash (purchasable with real-world cash) to purchase an "unwither" to rejuvenate the crops, or use a biplane with "instant grow" to cause crops to be immediately available for harvest. Although the biplane could be purchased with coins, this special feature was only available for Farm Cash. As a player leveled up more, crops with a higher payoff and economy would become available. Sometimes a crop would need a permit that costs Farm Cash in order to be planted. A player could buy or receive from friends livestock and trees or bushels, such as
cherry A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus ''Prunus'', and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit). Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet ''Prunus avium'' and the sour '' Prunus cerasus''. The n ...
trees or
chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adu ...
s, which did not wither but instead became ready for harvest for preset amounts of money a set amount of time from their last harvest. Trees and livestock could not die.


In-game purchases

The two main in-game currencies, Farm Coins and Farm Cash (in ''FarmVille'') or Farm Bucks (in ''FarmVille 2''), were available for purchase from Zynga with real-world money. Coins could also be "earned" within the game by completing tasks or selling crops, and could be spent on basic in-game items such as seeds. Farm Cash and Farm Bucks were more difficult to acquire within the game, and could not be earned within the farm's economic system, only by special actions like leveling up or completing tasks. Farm Cash and Farm Bucks provided a route to acquire further in-game items, such as additional animals for the farm, or to acquire in-game resources like animal feed, water, fuel and power, which were otherwise slow and/or laborious for players to acquire.


Social interaction

Like most Zynga games, ''FarmVille'' incorporated the
social networking A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for ...
aspect of Facebook into many areas of gameplay. Contacting other players allowed the player to improve their farm more quickly, by using their help as farmhands or by gaining rewards from helping them. Often the aid of other players was a substitute for Farm Cash, the game's purchasable in-game currency, giving players an effective choice between spamming their friends with ''FarmVille'' messages and requests, or paying real-world cash. ''FarmVille'' had allowed players to add neighbors that are not Facebook friends, thus allowing the player to have many neighbors at hand. Players invited friends or other players that were not Facebook friends to be their neighbors, allowing them to perform five actions on each other's farms per day by "visiting" it. Neighbors could also send gifts and supplies to each other, complete specialized tasks together for rewards, and join "co-ops" - joint efforts to grow a certain amount of certain crops. Gifts were sent as mystery gifts with expensive, but random items, special deliveries with building supplies, or by choosing a particular item to send. They cost the sending user nothing. For ''FarmVille''s 2nd birthday, a series of different mystery gifts were added to the Gifts Page.


Development


Partnerships

''FarmVille'' occasionally ran in-game partnerships where users can visit another company's virtual farm and buy or receive items with their brand logo. For example, as of June 9, 2011, users could get free
McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American multinational fast food chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hambur ...
hot air balloons, McCafe products and the ability to visit McDonald's' virtual farm. Other brand partnerships include Minion,
Frito Lay Frito-Lay is an American subsidiary of PepsiCo that manufactures, markets, and sells corn chips, potato chips, and other snack foods. The primary snack food brands produced under the Frito-Lay name include Fritos corn chips, Cheetos cheese-flavor ...
,
Dish Network DISH Network Corporation (DISH, an acronym for DIgital Sky Highway) is an American television provider and the owner of the direct-broadcast satellite provider Dish, commonly known as Dish Network, and the over-the-top IPTV service, Sling ...
Hopper,
Capital One Capital One Financial Corporation is an American bank holding company specializing in credit cards, auto loans, banking, and savings accounts, headquartered in McLean, Virginia with operations primarily in the United States. It is on the li ...
,
American Express American Express Company (Amex) is an American multinational corporation, multinational corporation specialized in payment card industry, payment card services headquartered at 200 Vesey Street in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Man ...
,
Lady Gaga Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta ( ; born March 28, 1986), known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She is known for her image reinventions and musical versatility. Gaga began performing as a teenag ...
, Rio (the motion picture), Haiti Relief Fund,
Discover Card Discover is a credit card brand issued primarily in the United States. It was introduced by Sears in 1985. When launched, Discover did not charge an annual fee and offered a higher-than-normal credit limit, features that were disruptive to the ...
,
Cascadian Farms General Mills, Inc., is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, the company o ...
,
Megamind ''Megamind'' is a 2010 American computer-animated superhero comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. Directed by Tom McGrath from a screenplay by Alan Schoolcraft and Brent Simons, the film stars ...
, Farmers Insurance, Microsoft Bing, and
7-Eleven 7-Eleven, Inc., stylized as 7-ELEVE, is a multinational chain of retail convenience stores, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The chain was founded in 1927 as an ice house storefront in Dallas. It was named Tote'm Stores between 1928 and 1946. A ...
. ''FarmVille'' also offered engagement advertising where users could interact with a brand in exchange for free Farm Cash through an ad platform called SVnetwork.


Release


Expansions

''FarmVille'' has added numerous expansions over the game's lifetime, where players farm in new locales that include England, Hawaii, Japan, Atlantis, Winter holiday locations, Australia and more. As of 2014, ''FarmVille'' releases a new farm approximately every six weeks.


Board games

In 2012, Zynga, in conjunction with
Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational conglomerate holding company incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Hasbro owns the trademarks and products of K ...
, released several kids' "Animal Games" based on ''FarmVille'' under the "Hasbro Gaming" imprint. These include versions of ''
Memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remember ...
'' (in a "Disco Dancing Sheep" pouch), ''
Go Fish Go Fish or Fish is a card game usually played by two to five players,
although it can be played wi ...
'' (in a "Groovy Chicken" pouch), ''
Old Maid An old maid is a spinster. Old maid or Old Maid may also refer to: Games *Old maid (card game), a simple game popular around the world, existing in many variants *, a German card game (variant of ) whose name translates as 'old maid' Film * ' ...
'' (in a "Rockstar Cow" pouch), and ''Hungry Hungry Herd'' (a redux of '' Hungry Hungry Hippos'' with the characters Gobbling Horse, Munching Pig, Snacking Sheep and Chomping Cow replacing the Hippos in the original game). This is one of several games in the Zynga game library to be released as physical board game versions. Others include ''
Draw Something '' Draw Something'' is a video game developed by OMGPop based on its browser game ''Draw My Thing'', launched on February 6, 2012. It won a Flurry App Spotlight Award in 2012. In the first five weeks after its launching, the game was downloaded ...
'', ''
Words with Friends ''Words with Friends'' is a multiplayer word game developed by Zynga with Friends, Newtoy. Players take turns building words crossword-puzzle style in a manner similar to the classic board game ''Scrabble''. The rules of the two games are simila ...
'' and a ''
CityVille ''CityVille'' is a defunct casual social city-building game developed by Zynga, and released in December 2010. A sequel, '' CityVille 2'', was released in December 2012. It was closed down on February, 2013 just three months after the game's ...
'' edition of ''
Monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...
''.


Reception

Despite the initial success of the game, it has received a negative reaction from critics, video game designers, and personalities. ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...
'' magazine called the game one of the "50 Worst Inventions" in recent decades due to it being "the most addictive of Facebook games" and a "series of mindless chores on a digital farm". In a December 2010 interview with ''
Gamasutra ''Game Developer'', known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021, is a website founded in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine '' Gam ...
'', game designer and programmer Jonathan Blow criticized ''FarmVille'' for being designed to create an atmosphere of negativity, requiring an unprecedented commitment to the game, and encouraging users to exploit their friends. The video game researcher
Ian Bogost Ian Bogost is an American academic and video game designer, most known for the game ''Cow Clicker''. He holds a joint professorship at Washington University as director and professor of the Film and Media Studies program in Arts & Sciences and ...
designed ''
Cow Clicker ''Cow Clicker'' is an incremental social network game on Facebook developed by video game researcher Ian Bogost. The game serves as a deconstructive satire of social games. The goal of the game is to earn "clicks" by clicking on a sprite o ...
'' as a satire of ''FarmVille'' and similar Zynga games to deconstruct the repetitiveness and perceived absurdity of such games.


Awards

''FarmVille'' won an award at the
Game Developers Conference The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival, and a variety of tuto ...
for the "Best New Social/Online Game" in 2010. The crowd booed a Zynga executive as he accepted the award.


Sequels

On June 26, 2012, ''FarmVille 2'' was unveiled, and was subsequently released in September 2012. It differs from the original ''FarmVille'' in a number of ways. ''FarmVille 2: Country Escape'' for mobile devices ( iOS, Android,
Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design lan ...
and
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...
operating systems) was released on April 10, 2014, and received a positive review from ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. Unlike other games in the ''FarmVille'' series, ''FarmVille 2: Country Escape'' can be played offline. ''FarmVille 3'' was released in November 2021.


References


Further reading

*


External links

* {{Authority control 2009 video games Browser-based multiplayer online games Facebook games Farming video games Social casual games Video games developed in the United States Video games with isometric graphics IOS games Zynga Free-to-play video games Casual games Products and services discontinued in 2020 Game Developers Choice Award winners