Social Gaming

To Jason Tanz,

     Your article, "The Curse of Cow Clicker: How a Cheeky Satire Became a Videogame Hit", offered an interesting and enlightening discussion on the way in which our videogames are changing. The main theme of the article relied on the aspects of a new type of gaming, called social games. These games include the likes of Restaurant City and FarmVille, and are quickly becoming the most popular videogames out right now. While the popularity and interest is undeniable at this point, I however don't see the lasting effect these games have. Nevertheless, the article goes into detail on many interesting topics concerning these new types of games and how our society is reacting to them.
     When you come across games like FarmVille, it's undeniable how fast they can gain attention and popularity. When FarmVille, and other similarly-constructed games, first started emerging on Facebook, they literally took over users' news feeds. Anytime I would log on to check my profile, it was near impossible to avoid seeing some type of notification that one of my friends had done something in FarmVille. The key aspect of this craze however was the fact that a "craze" is all it really was. FarmVille's popularity soared in the beginning but then quickly faded once users got tired of the same monotonous tasks in the game. I believe the same can be said for most of these new social games.
     A more recent example of this can be seen through the game "Draw Something", which is also a new social game that smartphone users can download as an application. As soon as I got my hands on this new game, I was immediately addicted. I found myself checking the application multiple times a day to play my turn against a friend. No more than two weeks later howveer, my use of the game slowed to nearly not at all as I had become tired of the same repetitive objective of the game. While possibly highly addictive and a great way to interact with other individuals, social games don't hold the same value and content as a traditional videogame should.