Players of the social game Farmville sent 500 million Valentines over 48 hours this past weekend, the Gigaom blog reported. The valentines were free, but players pay for a lot of other virtual goods. Engage Digital Media recently released 2009 figures for "virtual goods-related investments," showing that "more than $1.38 billion was invested in 87 virtual goods-related companies," triple 2008's … [Read more...] about Virtual goods growth market
gaming
What’s the deal with Farmville?
If you believe what a few of its 72 million worldwide players told USATODAY, the Facebook-based, virtual-reality social game offers a mild sense of escape, fosters a sort of virtual diligence (about tending one's virtual crops and farm animals), and encourages community and charity toward one's virtual neighbors (neighbors get "points and gold for scaring away pests, fertilizing or feeding … [Read more...] about What’s the deal with Farmville?
WoW: The guild effect for teachers
There are lots of good reasons why an assistant superintendent of schools would start a guild in World of Warcraft (WoW) – all laid out in a fascinating profile of the Cognitive Dissonance Guild and its educator members in The Journal this month. But the reason why Catherine Parsons, assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction, and pupil personnel services for Pine Plains Central School … [Read more...] about WoW: The guild effect for teachers
Social gaming cleaning up its act?
Well, some social gaming companies, it appears. If you're not sure what's meant by "social gaming," you may've heard of Farmville, an extremely popular little game in Facebook. TechCrunch recently ran an exposé that called this gaming ecosystem "scamville" - great family-discussion fuel. He wrote that the games "try to get people to pay cash for in-game currency so they can level up faster and … [Read more...] about Social gaming cleaning up its act?
Turning young players into game designers
Microsoft Research is literally creating code kids can play with. It's called Kodu – a play on the word "code" – and it's a programming language for creating games on Xbox that's "designed to be accessible for children and enjoyable for anyone," Microsoft says on its Web page about it. You design with a game controller (and my 12-year-old thought he was going to have to learn game design in … [Read more...] about Turning young players into game designers