Farmville: The World’s Newest Farmers

Facebook application/Zynga application “Farmville”, digital farming experience, is capturing the hearts of students at Leesville.

Planting soybeans and squash, harvesting the crops, and milking the cow are all new and unusual hobbies that are being taken up by students at Leesville

This virtual farming experience is sweeping the school and pulling students away from their schoolwork every night at harvest time. This game gives the player the opportunity to plant produce, flowers and trees, give home to animals such as cows and elephants, and decorate the farm with anything from scarecrows to crop circles.

The application currently has 11 million users and that number grows every day.

Jason Holtman, a junior Farmville farmer, is one of the many people that finds them self addicted to this guilty pleasure.

“At first I thought Farmville was stupid, but once my girlfriend got me started, I was addicted.” Holtman blames his need to farm on “Keeping the farm better then everyone else’s.”

Like most Facebook applications, Farmville combines the thrill of virtual gaming with fun of social networking.

The game allows you to have “neighbors” which is the Farmville equivalent to a Facebook friend. These neighbors can send and receive “gifts” such as animals and trees, perform chores on another neighbor’s farm such as raking leaves or scaring crows and the ability to fertilize a neighbor’s crops with “SuperGro” fertilizer.

Ben McKnight, sophomore, is yet another Leesville farmer who prides himself at level 30. “Farmville is like crack,” said McKnight, “Once you start, you can’t stop.”

Although Farmville may seem all fun and games, (for it is infact, a game) there is some controversy surrounding the game.

In the game, players attempt to earn farm coins, which are generally quick and easy to gain, and farm cash, which is only received with a level up.

Farm cash could take days to earn, and unsurprisingly, is also the key that unlocks the most sought after farm decorations, such as pink barns, and manors.

For those that wish to skip the work, Zynga encourages players to buy game items with real money.

Because of this users that are obsessed with beautifying their farm end up paying real money in order to receive, in material terms, nothing.

Zynga claims that one third of their revenue comes from these purchases, which proves that a good amount of users are falling victim to this form of virtual shopping.

Despite all of this, the game is consistently growing in popularity, and probably worth a try. As Farmville would say… “Happy Farming!”

Katy Huis, Editor-in-Chief

Katy has been on staff since her sophomore year, starting as a staff writer. With hard work and diligence, she earned a junior editor position and ultimately became Editor-in-Chief her senior year. She will pursue a degree in journalism in college.