Tag: social networking

Article by Courtney Murphy. Media by Caitlin Opp and Courtney Murphy. On Wednesday, April 26th, we had the pleasure of having Dr. Ryan Burge. Dr....

Written by Halie Miller. Media by Kelsey Kuethe. My FarmVille 2 chickens weep on weeks I’m swamped with homework, and every day I’m away from my townsfolk brings my Sims Freeplay a day closer to destruction. With my Happy Aquarium fish starving and my Sims Social character the most antisocial of the lot, I can’t help but wonder about the phenomenon that is social network gaming and how much time it takes out of our lives. Are they harmful at worst and useless at best or simply entertainment? I insist they are both, but neither results in the other. Most of us participate (some of us to excess) in social gaming, and we enjoy reaching pre-established goals and completing game quests. Along with these motivators designed to justify the hours we spend with our eyes glued to the screens, we appreciate the asynchronous gameplay, allowing us to play in cooperation with each other without our simultaneously presence online. Finally, we delight that they are often free. Controversial company, Zynga, currently the top social game developer, boasts its FarmVille 2 the most popular app with 46,500,362 monthly active users (MAU) as of March 27th, 2013; the developer’s CoasterVille holds a respectable second place with 41,117,696 MAU. Eventually those numbers (and those of their competitors) will drop off, though not as suddenly as one might assume, making the way for the next gaming trend as YoVille did when replaced by its successor, The Ville