The Threat That Is FarmVille: The Matrix Inverted

Welcome to FarmVille


Innocuous enough, right?

A time-killer game attached to your FaceBook portal, along with about five other meaningless do-nothing games such as Mafia Wars and PetVille. These niceties are provided to you courtesy of Zynga, which may or may not be the front for the Antichrist.

I'm assuming that most of you have at least encountered FaceBook and FarmVille.

This game is addictive like cocaine-laced-alcohol-cigarettes. It's like flypaper, you can't put the thing down. It's Pavlov's dogs with a Salad-Shooter dispensing goodies and high-fives for no apparent reason. The game causes a complete cascading failure of the higher functions of the human brain, so you're reduced to a near-vegetative state save for motor skills necessary to operate the mouse, by which you ACCEPT your rewards of flowers, animals, farming equipment, Mardi Gras beads and SuperBowl premiums and other precious things that you can't live without. It's virtual commerce and virtual consumerism.

Oh, of course, there's no real value to any of this nonsense. The rewards are meaningless. The crops are meaningless. The entire experience is meaningless, but very extremely psychologically addictive. It's brain candy.

They made it for kids, you say.

Yeah, right... That's why there are options to plug in your CREDIT CARD and ADD POINTS to your game in exchange for HARD CURRENCY. Oh, you can BUY the biggest, baddest plantation in FarmVille, certainly... There's no ceiling, You can pump as much money as you want into this hole, it'll never fill up.

Yeah, I tried it for a few days, got caught up in it, even sent $10 to Zynga via PayPal in exchange for a few extra points. And then I stopped and shook my head and realized....

WTF?

Like, open a window and just throw a handful of cash out there. Wave bye-bye...

But, you know, I'm not so self-righteous that I refuse to recognize a lucrative venture when I see one. I know it's pure Pavlovian manipulation for commercial gain, but there's something ELSE about this that feels weird...

The Matrix

I envision hundreds of millions of people around the world plugged-in to FarmVille, mesmerized with their simplistic Flash-generated virtual reality, their neural spark in perfect synch with the rotations of their little virtual crops. This is their world.

Meanwhile, Zynga is draining their credit accounts.

It IS The Matrix, but we're on the outside looking in, PAYING to live these bizarre two-dimensional lives.

Is it any coincidence, do you think, that the movie Avatar just broke all box-office records?

Ya think maybe we're being SET-UP to ACCEPT a world in which we live vicariously through our little FarmVille Avatars while any true value we may have in Life is drained away?

— Doc Velocity

Umm...I'm pretty sure it's just a way for the creator to make money. And people are buying into it, so what's the big deal? And I don't know anybody that is "addicted" to Farmville, despite having tons of Facebook friends that play it now and then. I played it for about two days, but it got boring very quickly when I discovered how unrealistic the whole game is. So if people want to go spend their/mommy's money on virtual nothingness, go ahead and let them contribute something to this economy.

Holy Crap! Look at it! It's a socialist engine of wealth redistribution!

They mesmerize the rich to feed the poor. Is this a bad thing?

Eh.

We get what we deserve.

— Doc Velocity

Say huh? How on earth is anything in Farmville wealth redistribution? I never saw that button in the game.

At the end of the day, it was a clever company that decided to market games and have money that could be bought. No different from Everquest money or Warcraft gold farmers selling it online so players can buy better "stuff."

It's marketing, but I don't see the conspiracy.

does this game have an "elite" gruop of players? do people hold their status with prestige or spend hours upon hours completing some boring repetative task to earn an ingame reward?

if not then it can't compete with wow. hell,even real life has it's fair share of that.

reply to post by Doc Velocity

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I don't think of it as any different than XBOX live or PSN. You are paying real money for something that doesn't really exist. You buy a game from XBL or PSN, you have no real physical media to hold in your hand. It is the experience you are paying for. I think of it as paying them, to allow them, to buy your time.

The ironic part is that you paid no real physical currency for that experience. Sure it COULD have been real money but it wasn't, you exchange arbitrary numbers for arbitrary code.

I played farmville for a bit but got bored with it quickly.

Really? You actually spent money on it????



My .02....It's just a way for the game developers to make money...

I'm just wondering how this is different from virtually all other video games? It's either free to start or you have to buy it (as it is someone's work), and you can buy extra points (much like ATS) for additional electronic frippery if you don't want to go through the hassle/work of actually earning it in game. Pretty much every game I have ever played, including World of Warcraft, could be defined as above. Are you against all video games, and if not, why has this one got your ire up so? I think 2nd Life would be even more scary, from your POV. It's all electronic nonsense and time wasters. It's also entertainment, which many sorely need after a long day at work. As an aside, if you haven't read it, you may like the novel Snow Crash (although it might really add to your v-game paranoia! But it's a darn good read.)

I really don't see the major issue. If it adds to your life, great. If your addicted to any of them, spending to much money or not living your real life, you should probably stop.

Wow. You know, the sense of humor on ATS is, like, at about the seventh level of granite rock...

Was the sarcasm totally lost on you people?? Jeez!



C'mon, loosen up, the world isn't ending.

— Doc Velocity

reply to post by Doc Velocity

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There is one sure-fire solution to an addiction to Farmville...

STOP PLAYING IT!

I swear, people act like these bull# material items are something of importance. If you don't like it, stop playing it. It's as simple as that.

Just for informational purposes, I neither have a Facebook account nor have I played Farmville. At last check, I am still socially relevant.

There is a choice when it comes to things like this. You either like it and play it, or you don't like it and don't play it. Both are just fine, so long as you don't attempt to mask the shame of having put your time and money in to something as ridiculous as a farming game by authoring a thread which purports that that very same farming game was coded by the Antichrist.

Not being funny Doc but wouldn't a 'joke' be more appropriate for BTS rather then cluttering up the conspiracy board? Just a thought.

You must really have nothing to do with your time if you feel the need to make a sarcastic thread about Farmville.

Slow day at work?...

...or school?

Your argueing the very essense of what makes the world the world, most people want to belong or feel like they belong.
If your arguement stands true, then World of Warcraft is a truer evil that can actually destroy lives and has...
I'm pretty sure ATS has destroyed lives too, I joined in 03 with this blog name and was a member before that with another blog name, I became so engrosed in arguements and troll hunting activity that my life went down the youtube (I know bad pun).
I left the site after I realized that for the most part ATS has a way of bringing down intellectual research and arguement down to the level of peons (no offense) but thats why every thread has a Mod making sure we stick to the topic, not our personal ego, pride, or vendetta.

Bottom line is your argueing a point of no return, were already there. We were all hooked up to the server so to speak. We have become dependent on a system used to actually enslave us.

In reality Democracy/Free Speach is the greatest treat to our freedom, it represents an illusion of Freedom

Fox

OP, you need to calm the hell down and put things into perspective. It's a game and the creator wants $. Pretty simple concept. Even capitalist, dare I say.

FWIW, I found Farmville to be completely unappealing.

EDIT: I just read that this is a joke. What a waste of time. Get a life OP.

[edit on 4-2-2010 by Protostellar]

ROFL
Well Doc I got a great laugh. the Matrix inverted very cool word picture.

Your view on the evils of farmville can be put on any video game, from pac man to modern warfare 2.

Can also be put on renting movies, watching movies, and basically doing anything else where you spend money on a temporary illusion.

so...zynga is the antichrist? well, I guess that puts Obama/Bush/Clinton/BushSr./Reagen off the hook...whew..

and here I thought it would be...donno...taller

This game was a great idea to make an impressive amount of money from people who are bored. They don't realize what their doing, as with many things. It takes away the strin of thought needed to actually complete something or learn anything. if it is a conspiracy, it's just for a small group of people to make money from today's easily distracted population.

This thread isn't a "joke," it's a legitimate question. But it was loaded with sarcasm, also.

— Doc Velocity

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Brilliant observation..... Yes, they are distracting us, numbing our minds as they replace reality with games! The insult is they think we cannot 'see' whats happening.