For social networks, it’s game on – by Jon Swartz

Though I haven’t played FarmVille or Cafe World, I can certainly see how big of a craze these games have become. It seems that every day, at least one of my Facebook friends has found a lost animal on their farm or “tossed a few too many pizzas in Cafe World.” Why have these games become so popular, what do we learn from them? Koster might say that these games teach “tools for being the top monkey.” (page 52) However, not only are my peers learning to be top monkeys, but so are my aunts and uncles that have (for whatever reason) joined Facebook. As Dani mentioned earlier, how do adults fit in to our discussion of games? Marketing contractor Laura Phillips plays FarmVille in order to escape from the real world and relax, but is she learning or gaining anything new by playing this game?

Additionally, what role, if any, does the social networking aspect of games (both online games and videogames) have? Would FarmVille be as popular as it is today if it were not an online game, but instead a videogame made for a console such as Playstation 3? Perhaps popularity would decrease, since Laura Phillips and other adults are not always as drawn to those consoles as they are to computers. Would my peers still be drawn to FarmVille if it were made for Playstation 3 or another game console?