Comments on: 8 Ways FarmVille Designs for Engagement

By: Mark Focas

Mark Focas — Fri, 13 May 2011 00:23:00 +0000

This is an interesting post, I like how cleanly you laid out your experience with farmville. The point 3 – allow uses to create without typing, I found it a little sad that such a popular game requires such a little amount of thought, however I do like the general sentiment. Things need to be easy to do otherwise you lose a good part of your audience.

By: Chas

Chas — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 12:18:00 +0000

The real question is how to recreate the best parts of the process in one’s business without 200 programmers.

By: John

John — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:52:07 +0000

I have not played farmville before, but I understand the basics. I think #2 is especially important. It adds a viral component to the game which is very important.

I might have to give the game a try, though I hear it is addicting.

By: 8 Ways FarmVille Designs for Engagement « Yet another Usability Blog

8 Ways FarmVille Designs for Engagement « Yet another Usability Blog — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 11:38:11 +0000

[...] term is open to dispute – for me at least it only worked in the medium term. Nevertheless Phil Michaelson’s article on motivational aspects of FarmVille is worth to have a look at. Like [...]

By: plant42

plant42 — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 16:11:44 +0000

The main problem with these games is that games involve some measure of skill, and risk/reward. In Farmville there’s no way to lose anything (progress, money, XP etc), have any numbers go down, or really suffer any negative feedback. There’s no skill building, I’m never getting better at anything. There is no risk whatsoever. Even in a game of chess I can lose pieces due to poor planning.

Without risk, the endless stream of rewards, money, leveling up, bigger farms and overall pats on the back feels pretty meaningless/empty.

By: Jeff Gatlin

Jeff Gatlin — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 03:53:59 +0000

Option 5: Make users feel lonely… a rather sour way to look at it. I certainly wouldn’t play a game that made me feel lonely all the time. Better would be ‘Show users they can benefit by inviting friends’. The rest is spot on.

By: Debbie of Debbie's weeds

Debbie of Debbie's weeds — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:12:11 +0000

Thanks for clearing my weeds, neighbor! =)

By: Joe Camel

Joe Camel — Sun, 30 May 2010 16:34:35 +0000

Amazing product. Good article explaining how they do it. You can’t argue with success!! I’ve been to zynga HQ recently – they have a LOT of people working hard to improve not only this but their other products. That was my first introduction to them as a company, and they sold me in the first (and only) hour!

By: Julio Verani

Julio Verani — Sun, 30 May 2010 00:43:14 +0000

Well, talking about the interface and usability, the game is trully awesome. I play it and i made some real friends inside it. They’re ideas are nice, specially the limited/special events.

Talking about the profit scully said above, well, i play it for an year now and never spent real money on it. As many other games out there, you have to make your own fun inside. People use money on these games? Sure! But i see it like they have lots of money and dont care to spend it on a game, or they need to buy their fun.

The fact is, if they earn money thru the game, they should spend it by hiring programmers for their staff that can solve the EVERYDAY problems and improve their server capabilities to avoid many problems that the players can experience almost everyday.

I grade the game itself as an A , but the staff can get a B- or less…

By: Jason

Jason — Sat, 29 May 2010 16:21:20 +0000

Yeah couldn’t agree with above comment more. Glad John doerr is thinking big here… What a waste of his and everyone elses time.