Taking the Facebook Out of the Farmville

EDITOR'S NOTEfrom Demian Linn

Adam is the last person in the world to try Farmville, and he's doing it in stealth mode, without spamming his Facebook friends. I went the same route -- sorry, information about my new pony was on a need-to-know basis only -- but I didn't last two weeks.

Welcome to the Farmville Player Protection Program .

I have a confession to make: I have started playing Farmville.

Still reading? OK. I know I'm late to the social gaming party. I know that -- your mom jokes aside -- only your mom plays Farmville now. I guess I started because I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. I like video games, so I thought I should at least experience it firsthand. I've been playing it fairly regularly for the past two weeks, and it's pretty fun. It's mostly mindless clicking, but like all great casual games, they've put in all the right tricks to keep you coming back for more.

But you see, here's the thing: I had to tell you that I played Farmville. If you were (or are) my Facebook friend, you would have no idea that I grow candy corn from my Facebook profile. Whenever Farmville tries to get me to tell you that I'm doing that, which it does at almost every turn, I say no. I say cancel. I don't hit share. Because, well, I don't want everyone on Facebook to know that I play Farmville. And I don't think I'm alone. It is for this reason that I propose that Farmville provide us the option to dump the Facebook.

I know. It's called social gaming. I'm not suggesting that we cut out the social-ness of it. I just think that maybe we should move the social aspects into a gaming network, instead of having them clog up a social network. Not for everyone, but just as an option for us so-called "hardcore" gamers.

We have services like Apple's Game Center -- I would love to use that for the social aspects of Farmville. Likewise, I would buy a Farmville Xbox Arcade game if it allowed me to play on my TV and share things with my Xbox friends. I simply don't want to spam the people on Facebook with what is admittedly lame game garbage. I don't want my cousins and former classmates and former employers to know that a lost cow has wandered onto my farm and is looking for a new home. I want just the gamers to know that; just the people who care.

: Can't I fly this plane out of Facebook?

Until something like this is implemented, Farmville isn't a social game for me. I refuse to let it write on my Facebook wall, and so half the fun of the game is lost. What could essentially be a farming MMO with all of my gamer friends becomes a lonely, solo click-fest. In two weeks, I'll be bored with that click-fest, and I just won't care anymore. But right now, wow you guys, I'd love the option to take the Farmville out of the Facebook.

But if anyone asks, no, of course I don't play Farmville. Ew.

(5)

Rich M

October 29, 2010

Separating from Facebook will never happen. Zynga depends too much on the message and announcement spamming to promote it's game to the masses. And if you aren't spamming your friends with messages or giving Zynga bucks via their FarmCash, then you must be trudging along at a ridicluously slow pace.

I used to enjoy Farmville, Cafe World and Frontierville but the tedium eventually got to me. The above poster is right though and I already use the same tactic and suggest it as well.

Create a bogus facebook account and share with any friends who play the games you play. Or go to the facebook page for each game and make friend requests there. Most people will friend you because of how much the game rewards you for having more "neighbors".

Demian Linn

Actually, I think Facebook may be working on a fix to this:

http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/29/facebook-weeks-away-from-launching-new-games-portal/

Jordan Vincent

I have a wonderful idea. Make a facebook profile exclusively for playing games. Now have all your friends do the same thing and 'friend' them. There, problem solved. :)

David Ahnger-Pier

October 30, 2010

I'm doing exactly the same thing, except with ESPNU College Town instead of Farmville. It's fun for what it is, but no way am I letting it post to my wall.

Jordan Sommers

What I tend to do is create a list with friends that use a particular game and then if the wall post is compelling (i.e. if it is something I would click on if a friend posted it on their wall) I'll go in and edit the privacy settings to only post to the specific group for, say, Farmville or whatever before I post it.

It does require a bit of work and a small amount of maintenance, but I'm not spamming people who don't even play the game and if someone I know is already playing they can get in game bonuses and such.

For games that none of my friends are playing, sometimes I'll hit the game forums (if there are any) and often find that some of the bonus links don't even require you to be friends and there are topics where people just copy the links to their bonuses and paste them there so I can both share mine and have a large repository of other people's bonuses that I can try to snag. So that's sometimes an option as well depending on how the game was built.