Silicon Roundabout

UK Specific Farmville Recreates British Countryside

Chuck Ansbacher | Thursday 17 March, 2011 13:46

Last summer, I attended a large family reunion picnic thing. It was the kind of reunion where so many distant daughters of husbands of second cousins come that you’re introduced to a handful of family members for the very first time who in reality only vaguely qualify as anything close to family.

One such family member was a woman I’d place in her late 40s. She came with her two young kids, but spent the entire day clicking away at her Blackberry while the children mingled with the swarm of other children at this thing. I assumed she was consumed in work, and was exemplifying the stereotypical “glued to the Crackberry” business person we’ve all grown to know an loath.

When I finally got a word in with her later in the day and asked her how work was going, she replied, “Ugh, this Farmville is killing me. Are you into this thing too? My kids complain that I’m on it all the time, but I can’t stop!”

I was impressed by her sarcasm and self deprecation abilities… until I realised nothing of the sort had occured. This woman had actually been sitting in a corner for the better part of six hours, playing Farmville.

Chances are you’ve had an experience like this — if not with Farmville, then some other phone-related money/time killer. Farmville has 50 million users worldwide — about a quarter of Facebook’s total user base.

But that number is in precipitous decline. In the past month Zynga, Farmville’s parent company, lost about three million users alone. Are people who do things on the internet fickle? Probably.

Zynga, however, has a plan to combat this fickleness: Country specific Farmville! The British Countryside is being treated to its very own version of the horrible game, complete with native plants, animals, shire-esque architecture and Union Jack Zeppelins.

Is any of this important? That depends on how you define the word. As smart-phones continue to proliferate, and people become less interested in the world they’re confronted with, adults are increasingly glued to their screens, and it’s not because they’re managing their stock portfolios.

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