Farmville: Social Addiction

I didn't know where to begin for this project really, so I did what I always do when I need to brainstorm a topic for explaining and I went and had a chat with my sister. At first i tried explaining article about feminism to her ... But she didn't have much patience for that because she doesn't really care about feminism much and is rather a masculine girl to begin with. (which I know I could go into a lot deeper and explain how culture effected my little sister into hating the color pink, making her think that being called a girl is an insult, and making her rather work out then go shopping any day of the week.) So I tried another route and tried to explain the article about pot. My sister wasn't interested in that much more, but she favored it next to the feminism one.

I didn't get too far into my explaination before I had already confused her. She began asking me whether or not I was on pot at that point in time. So I tried relating pot-using to another addiction that had no chemical influence over the brain. I was trying really hard to find a different example to use, but was not having too much luck. My sister being her snarky little self, started listing off things that I had been addicted to in the past or was addicted to now. She started off with chocolate, comic books, Teen Titans, ceramics, boxes... Then she got really excited and yelled out FARMVILLE!

Oh Jeez... Yes I was one of those people who everybody hated because they were addicted to that game, and I am very ashamed of the matter, but, it worked too perfectly...

The thing about farmville, is that the game by itself sucks. You can't play the game without "neighbors" and that's why everybody hates "farmvillers" because they are always trying to convert more players. The game is a social networking game, it's got society tied up all in it.
Without Facebook, farmville is useless.

Within the pot-using article the author gave three things that had to be present in order for someone to become addicted. The translation from pot to farmville for those reasons would be:
1- Learn how to play the game in a way that produces a feeling of accomplishment
2- Learn how to compete with your fellow players and to compete well
3- Learning to enjoy the game and the competion

Society gets us addicted to Farmville. Your friends are playing it and asking over and over for you to join, until you give in and get a farm started. And even then, you still are not addicted to the game until you find something in the game that you want to work towards. (A large barn, or decorations to make your farm look pretty, or mastery of certain crops that produce the most money, ect.) But you don't actually go looking for the goals unless your neighbors show it to you.

Once you found a goal in the game then you start working towards it: planting the crops and harvesting them before time runs out. And if you forget about your crops then they die and you waste the money you spent planting them and are pushed further back upon your goal then where you were before. Not to mention, your neighbors are visiting your farm daily and notice your farm being dead as a sign of how competetive you are in this game. Then, once you finally make it to your goal and purchase what you have been saving for, you find something else that would look perfect right next to what you just barely bought. So the cycle begins again in order to buy the new goal.

That kind of constant competion and having to always be focused on it is seen as an annoyance for many people, and you have to learn how to enjoy it in order to become fully addicted to the endless cycle of plant, plow, harvest.

To pull another extreme onto the addiction of the game, is some people get so worried about the competion that they would actually pay real money to get a leg up on their neighbors. Its kind of crazy that people would pay real money in order to be better in these virtual games. It also seemed liked cheating to me and that was the final straw that got me to quit. (thankfully)

Because Farmville is based from Social Networks, the rules of a culture become the rules of the game. And you have to be addicted to the culture to get addicted to the game.
Farmville is a game of economic power: who ever has the most money, has the nicest looking farm and has reached the most levels. You are a culture that gives power to the wealthy... and whoever is the wealthiest is given irrational respect.
Farmville is pyschological desires: you just HAVE to have that new item that just came in the market. You are a consuming culture... even if it is a virtual item that doesn't exist.

My sister couldn't keep a straight face when I explained how farmville was the same kind of addiction that pot was, and how culture is what made it so addicting. But I think she followed what I was trying to say...