Are Facebook Games Addictive?

Are Facebook Games Addictive? You bet they are! What’s more important to understand is that they can cost you money too! Even more interesting is many of the top 10 games on Facebook are created by the same company. They obviously have the right recipe don’t they! Let’s take a closer look.

Farmville

With nearly 62 million active monthly users in the last 15 months alone, and farmers who have farmed 500 million acres of land, planted 20 billion trees, and sheared 15 billion sheep, players of this game are keeping busy.

Gamers can plant and harvest crops, ranging from peas to pumpkins, and they can also buy and raise livestock. (Apparently horses tend to be top-earning animals.) Many of these activities earn players “money,” or help unlock new levels with better crops.

Be warned though, players using real money via credit cards often play more, as more time is required to ‘tend’ crops and look after animals.

Texas Holdem Poker

On an average day, 375,000 poker lovers are playing Texas Holdem live, created by the same makers as Farmville. Worldwide, about 5.8 million unique players from more than 200 countries log on every day. Pretty good for a game in which the money can’t buy you much in the real world. (There are a few exceptions, like a partnership with the World Series of Poker.) But then again, that may be the draw for most players. You can risk big and win big without really risking at all. The largest win so far? Eight billion virtual dollars.

FrontierVille

Taking on the untamed wilderness seems to appeal to at least 31.5 million active gamers each month. The gist: these pioneers join fellow settlers in building a new world by doing hard electronic labour like chopping trees, planting crops, and taking care of livestock. Oh, they also create families. In September alone, 1.1 million heterosexual marriages took place in FrontierVille, as did 111,099 same-sex marriages. Those occurred somewhere between tending to chickens a total of 1,044,842,000 times, scaring away a bear 386,761,000 times, and 233,438,300 cotton harvests.
What company made the game? You guest it, the same makers as Farmville & Texas Poker.

Café World

4 from the same company is Cafe World, where gamers have built 82 million restaurants there, with an average of 5 million active players online each day. And these people work hard for their virtual money, serving up 19.5 billion dishes every 24 hours. This includes 48 million burgers, 80 million cups of coffee, and 10 million food gifts. To keep these businesses humming along requires 49.3 million annual hires. Why is this fun? We blame foodie shows like Masterchef & Top Chef.

Mafia Wars

5 from the same company, Mafia Wars is about building criminal empires. This multiplayer game starts off in New York City, where players have to work their way up the chain of mafia command by completing jobs, fighting rival mafia members, and ultimately taking out a don or two to assume control of a gang empire. For players, this is serious business. In fact, in a two-month timeframe, more than 20 billion jobs were completed across various cities in the game, 7 billion fights were fought, and 8 billion robberies were committed.
Once again, players have the option to purchase additional ‘gofers’, weapons and other privileges to get them up the criminal ladder.

Treasure Isle

6 from the same game makers as all the above this game is a social explorer game–lets you travel islands in search of major booty. Collect all the treasure pieces on an island and get paid. You can also dig up coins that you use as straight money, or dig up fruit for energy. In a six-month period, 100 billion cubic feet of earth were dug up in search of such goodies. Naturally, all that digging stirs up even a virtual appetite. That’s why 800 millions pieces of fruit were consumed in 2009. A treasure hunter’s got to eat.

Pet Society

7 is owned by a different company, Pet Society gamers showcase their inner fashionista or interior decorator to fellow players by shopping and decorating for their adorable virtual pets. Players can also spend quality time with their animal Facebook pals by fishing, gardening, cooking, and even treasure hunting together. But the real kicker? Your pet can have pets. There are more than 70 million pets in Pet Society. Those pets own hundreds of millions of “petlings.”

Happy Aquarium

8 If farms, treasure, or an abundance of land-based pets don’t do it for you, then maybe an underwater world will. Players in this game can customize their aquariums and fill them with cute baby fish they adopt. Once the fish are in your tank, you can teach them up to seven tricks, including following your cursor around the screen. (Hey, some people can enjoy that for minutes at a time.) If you’re not the kind to get attached, you can sell the fish once they’re grown and use the money to pimp your water pad.
Remember, games like these keep the users coming back daily. Those fish need to be fed that you just bought with your credit card, or they will die!

PetVille

9 Think real pets are spoiled? They have nothing on the 49 million PetVille pets created since the game’s launch. Pet owners in this virtual world build their furry pals, dress them in an assortment of getups, and invite other PetVille owners over for pet play dates that earn them coins. You can also earn coins by doing things like feeding your cute friend or cleaning up after his or her mess. The coins go toward building a cooler pet home or purchasing accessories that get you love points from your animal. (Sounds a lot like a real pet.) The downside is, if you fail to feed it or check in on it, the furry beast will run away. To get it back you’ll have to pay a fee to the local pound. Needless to say, this happens. More than 500,000 pets are reclaimed from the Petville pound each day.

Restaurant City

10 Users of Restaurant City are invited to build their own shop in a world that already boasts 49 million restaurants competing for customers. Each gamer can design their decor, create their menu, and share ingredients with friends. Successful spots get to hire more help and expand. One way to do this is to let avatars of friends drop in or work as waiters. Of course, there are some things that aren’t all that different from the real world. The most popular menu item on a recent week: a frappe mocha drink that gave gamers access to a new coffee bar.

And so the list goes on. You can be guaranteed that there will be a game for whatever your taste is. Another certainty is that there will always be ways to spend your hard earned money inside each game.
Remember, allowing young children to create a Facebook profile so they can play games is unacceptable. Facebook is an adult site where children should not be playing games.
On the other hand, adults playing games on Facebook will already know how addictive they are. Don’t loose too much sleep over it!