11 Million Online Farmers
Social gaming company Zynga boasts a massive 25 Million active users daily accross their vast catalogue. The most impressive of which is FarmVille, The multiplatform game is grabbing the attention of commentators due to its large evangelistic pull (11 Million daily users at last count / expected to eclipse 30 million).
Beyond the fact that somehow a free game about one of the dullest occupations (its subjective, I guess) is dominating World of War Crafts, is the diverse demographics FarmVille manages to pull as it capitalises on Facebook high 30+ plus market, with a reported proportional uptake of older users to youth users (relative to Facebook’s Audience). FarmVille is an Ad free zone and whilst its not cheap to sustain a global server of farmers they have managed to avoid horrible integration of product placement or brand emersion. Find me a strategic mix of farming and consumer products and I will give you 5 bucks.
However, Zynga systems are not just providing the system out of the goodness of their heart, they reported $2 Billion in virtual goods sales (VGS / where players spend real dollars to buy virtual currency or items in the game) across their gaming line in 2008. FarmVille only launched in June 30 and the game is theorised to have catalysed higher consumer involvement than any previous Zynga development ultimately leading to increased VGS.
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