Farmville Research Doc1

Creators: Zynga

Platform: Facebook

Objectives: Develop (as a player) your own farm using the methods that are used in today’s farming methods. Ploughing the soil on your land and then buying fruit, vegetables, trees and flowers which a player will have to look after over a certain amount of time and make sure they are well kept and don’t wither etc. Player does this by coming back on the game regularly and maintaining the farm. Then harvesting your produce, the player sells it to the game markets and get money back after selling them. In the meanwhile, the player racks up their achievements and different stats that they can earn, giving the player other objectives to complete. Really aiming at an audience of 10+.

• Different tools available to the players. Such as plough which ploughs the ground so you can grow upon it
• A basic colour scheme working to the target audience and objective of the game.  Shows also how you are developing through the game.
Use of Facebook: Utilises some of the main aspects Facebook is famous for and is used as the main social networking site. Aspects such as (these are the main ones):
·         Important Date Reminders
·         Notifications
·         Social Messaging
·         “Like” Ability
Facebook being a social networking site (and the most popular), important factor is to utilise some of the features that is available to the audience. The main social aspects that Zynga used to develop Farmville are:
·         Gifts – There is an ability in the game to send gifts to your fellow Farmville players which will help them develop their farm and how they cultivate it. There doesn’t need to be a special occasion for this to happen but you are reminded when a date is important such as birthdays and anniversaries. Player gets option go send gifts to the player on these dates.
·         Neighbours – You can add a fellow player of the game as a neighbour which means you can see how they are progressing and see how they are developing their farm as often as you want, also helping them with anything such as keeping the different fruit and veg watered, ploughing into the soil and making new stuff grow etc.  You can visit other players’ farms in the game anyway but this method makes it easier.
·         Stats – Each player has a level, ribbon count, masteries to earn, medals to earn and collections (including achievements) to find and earn.
·         Stat Tracking – You can see any other players’ development in the game and how they are doing in the game and compare it to your own. This shows you what level they are, any recent achievements they have earned and how they’re progression is.

 
This is where a player sends and retrieves gifts to use in the farms.

Adding a neighbour on the game is easy. You don’t have to be friends with the player; you can search for anonymous people and add them as a neighbour
 
Free 2 Play Concept
In Farmville there are 2 different versions of currency to use which buys you different content. These are:
·         Farm Coins – Coins in game which you earn through game
·         Farm Cash – Coins which you get using real currency, buys exclusive content
By doing this, Zynga have made it possible to play the game and makes the game playable but making it restricted so you can only complete the game to an extent and do a restricted amount of objectives making a player want to do more but can’t without actually spending their own money.
There are also Zynga Cards which are very similar to Microsoft Point in the way that they are sold in stores and by buying these; you can get exclusive content and collectables.