When does FarmVille finally get in the way?

FarmVille Logo
Is it when your grades start slipping? That's exactly what Harrisburg University of Science and Technology wants to find out this Monday when it will block its college network from all social networks this Monday. Part of an involuntary social experiment, the college-wide shut down of social media access will include Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and AOL Instant Messenger, according to Inside Higher Ed.

While Harrisburg University's issue with Facebook isn't solely due to FarmVille, surely some of that traffic was headed Zynga's way. When does FarmVille become such a prominent aspect of your life that it blocks their path to success? Have you ever had to cut yourself off from social games because you were afraid they were getting in the way? How would you feel if your school or workplace cut off your access to social games without your consent?

Weekly News Wrap: When Cafe World Took Over Our Lives

Days seem shorter? Check. Weather getting cooler? Uh huh. Well now that autumn seems to be in full swing, we're hunting down new indoor activities to keep us warm and busy. Farming and playing with cute animals still rank highly versus the Friday night TV lineup but this week's arrival of Zynga's Cafe World seriously threw us for a loop. We've been playing since we first caught wind of the game.

But that's not all that happened this week as Mafia Wars players found new adventures in Moscow, Zuma's Revenge gets a new version and we discovered a buried box of FarmVille tips that you'll just have to read. So get warm, it's time for the week's best stories.

Farmville Crop Mastery Released - Earn Bonuses Just Like in Mafia Wars


Farming isn't hard and fans of FarmVille have repeatedly wondered if the game might be better if there were more depth. Now, the game that gets Facebookers out to the dirt has added mastery bonuses to the game. Borrowed from FarmVille's cousin Mafia Wars, players gain mastery bonuses for repeating the planting of seed based foods. The details on what players gain from the mastery bonus is still a bit of a mystery, but any way to add more action to Facebook's hotttest game isn't a bad thing.

Mafia Wars: Moscow Tips - You'll Get By With a Little Help From Your Friends


Notice how your Mafia Wars-addicted friends skipped any social events this week? You can blame Mafia Wars: Moscow, the newest city expansion that brings mafia managers to Mother Russia's capitol to do business. Like the previously released Cuba expansion, Moscow tasks players with using the pugilist egos of your friends to complete jobs. It's an interesting development that you too can experience, if you're level 70 or higher. If you're already there, you'll want to read our tip guide before you take you trip.

Zuma's Revenge Adventure: Ball-Busting at Half the Price

Mention any of PopCap's games (Bejeweled, Plants vs. Zombies, Peggle, etc) and you'll find that even people who wouldn't necessarily play games, sure do play a lot of them. The latest variation of PopCap's Zuma series, Zuma's Revenge, pits players against a series of colored orbs that move closer and closer, your role is to shoot similarly colored orbs to make triplets, thus causing them to explode. While the full game carries a $20 price tag for the PC, the company released a pared down version called Zuma's Revenge – Adventure. You still get 60 levels of play, six new bosses but will miss out on the competitive challenge mode. Our recommendation is to get more game for $20, but if you're only got $10, there's still a lot of game with Zuma's Revenge – Adventure.

Farmville Maker Debuts New Facebook Game, Café World

Zynga surprised everyone this week by releasing a beta version (testing) of its upcoming game, Café World. In it, you take on the roles of café manager, head chef and room designer. As chef, you buy a menu items which gives you all the ingredients you need to make a meal. Of course, with cooking times ranging from 5 minutes to two days (yes, 48 hours), you still need to manage the hungry crowds of eaters. If you're looking to take a break this weekend, or looking for a familiar break from FarmVille, Café World is the type of welcome distraction that will warm up your chilly nights.

Facebook user growth has slowed, but what about Facebook games?

Hey, it had to happen at some point, right? Inside Facebook reports that, for the second month in a row, Facebook's growth has slowed down as it nears 700 million users worldwide. However, most of those new users are coming from developing countries that have just gained access to the social network, while countries that have enjoyed sharing every detail of their lives for years now are actually losing users.

For instance, Inside Facebook calculates that the U.S. alone lost some 6 million users in May, while overall growth has decline from 13.9 million new users in April to 11.8 million in May. That's the first time Facebook has lost users in the past year, though other countries have experienced somewhat similar situations, all of which you can check out in detail here. And while it's far too early to pin the nail in the Facebook coffin--this isn't MySpace we're talking about here (zing!)--it is cause for concern.

Companies that have invested millions if not billions in Facebook games like Zynga and EA might want to at least have their ears to the ground on this one. Though according to AppData, Zynga has experienced a small growth spurt in the past 30 days to 259.3 million monthly players, as EA has maintained its 32 million monthly players pretty easily over the same time.

Regardless of what might be happening to Facebook overall, this doesn't seem to be any cause for game developers to enter panic mode just yet. And besides, there's always iPhones and Android phones to fall back on--those things are selling faster than hot dogs wrapped in free money.

Disney-branded Facebook games coming in 2012, Playdom head says

Can we all just say, “finally?” During a panel named “The Rise of Social Games” at the f8 Facebook Developers Conference in San Francisco, Disney Interactive and Playdom head John Pleasants revealed that two to four Facebook games surrounding Disney xd brands will hit Facebook in 2012. The general topic of the panel was the fact that branded social games are taking off.

Pleasants was joined on the panel by Kabam CEO Kevin Chou, EA Interactive head Barry Cottle and Zynga CBO Owen Van Natta. Facebook director of games partnerships Sean Ryan moderated the panel with the preface that branded games will take over the Facebook platform. And he might be right: EA just released The Sims Social, Zynga will soon re-brand its new Adventure World with Indiana Jones and Kabam recently announced The Godfather: Five Families.

Playdom, which Disney acquired in July 2010 for a whopping $740 million, is ahead of the pack with two branded games on Facebook: ESPNU College Town and ESPN Sports Bar & Grill. Both games performed well, thanks to advertising through the ESPN TV network. While Disney owns the ESPN brand, notice how neither of those actually involve the insanely popular Disney characters we’ve come to love.

Honestly, we’re surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Consider this: Disney has its own cable TV channel through which it could, in theory, advertise whatever it wants. Pleasants didn’t get into why it’s taken this long for disney channel games to throw its cast of characters into Facebook games, but did reveal the power of the Disney name.

Gnome Town, which Playdom launched in the summer–and we enjoyed quite a bit–peaked at 530,000 daily players. But just plopping the Disney logo on top of the existing one made users more likely to spend in the game just through trust of the company’s name, according to Pleasants. “We think it’s an advantage, if you put game play first,” Pleasants said.

It’s comforting to hear this emphasized by these developers. (Kabam’s Chou shared the same sentiment.) Branded games on Facebook are OK in my book, but the last thing anyone wants to see is the genre become a branding machine.