The serious business of pretend products

[mrproper]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/235170

If you've spent time on Facebook, you might be mystified by all the people tending to their virtual farms and virtual pets. I know I am. Not only does this seem a strange way to spend time, but here's the even weirder part: a lot of these people are spending real money to buy virtual products, like pretend guns and fertilizer, to gain advantage in these Web-based games.



Good thing EU is a real cash economy, and not a pretend virtual sandbox

 

[Legion]

hehe damn that farmville company is raking in MILLIONS on that game every darn month. They got ~52million players 5% of those pay to play and they pay roughly 2$ a month wich is roughly 2.5mill a month. i think those where the numbers on the lecture we had

 

[mrproper]

hehe damn that farmville company is raking in MILLIONS

Well, this is the way of the future... anonymous social networks with huge numbers of participants.

The companies that prefer a select defined player base that give them 20$+ a month, create more advanced game that include complex economy rules and spectacular 3D graphics.

 

[mastermesh]

hmm...

MA should make a lightweight version of EU, or at least the auction part... and hook it in to facebook!

 

[Psionic22]

MA should make a lightweight version of EU, or at least the auction part... and hook it in to facebook!

like a text based rpg?

You have killed atrox.

It carried no loot.

 

[mastermesh]

like a text based rpg?

You have killed atrox.

It carried no loot.

That's really what all mmorpgs are under the hood... sure the pretty graphics are nice, but really it's all a big fancy multi user dungeon running off of a huge database behind the scenes...