Cultivated Play: Farmville | MediaCommons

http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/content/cultivated-play-farmville

"...it seems appropriate to examine the most popular video game in America. Farmville is a free, browser-based video game that is played through one's Facebook account. Users harvest crops, decorate their farms, and interact with one another, in what is ostensibly a game about farming. While this may sound like a relatively banal game, over seventy-three million people play Farmville.[7] Twenty-six million people play Farmville every day. More people play Farmville than World of Warcraft, andFarmville users outnumber those who own a Nintendo Wii.[8] This popularity is not surprising per se; even in the current recession, video game revenues reached nearly twenty billion dollars in America last year.[9]"