Zynga & 7-Eleven promo update from San Diego, CA

Zynga 7-Eleven Promotion

The Zynga & 7-Eleven promotion is well underway, and has now been rolled out to just about all 7-Elevens across the United States. Being a huge Zynga fan myself, I stopped at a store near my work to check out what items they had available. They were in the middle of hanging up all of the signage for this exclusive promotion, but I did manage to snag some pictures of a few of the items. If you live in San Diego, you have a ton of stores available to scour for items. There are a massive amount of FarmVille, YoVille, and Mafia Wars themed food and drinks. Check out the pictures and commentary after the break!
The Slurpee drinks were available in FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and YoVille cups. The most notable thing about this promotion is that the exclusive promo codes are printed right on the outside of the cup, meaning that anyone can walk in and take a picture of the code. Note: I did end up buying this cup, and I already redeemed the code. Don't try to be sneaky!


Every kind of sandwich has a code on it, hidden behind a peel-away sticker. There is an entire case full of these codes, so there is definitely no shortage.
Unfortunately, the location I stopped at was still in the process of hanging up all of their promo art, so I only got to snap a picture of it on the counter instead of hanging up.
If you're not sure where to find a 7-Eleven in San Diego, you must live inside of a cave because they're everywhere! The 7-Eleven website has a handy store locator that will help you find the store nearest you. Have any pictures from your local store? Email them to editors@games.com to be featured here on the blog!

7-Eleven codes in YoVille: Everything you need to know

If you're anything like us, you've already rushed out to your nearest 7-Eleven store to pick up some YoVille promotional goodies. There are many foods and beverages at 7-Eleven that will qualify to be redeemed for exclusive YoVille items. Read on for the complete guide to redeeming your 7-Eleven codes to obtain sweet YoVille loot.

First off, when you first enter 7-Eleven you will have to go to the area where the deli case and soft drink machines are located. Here you'll find items labeled with YoVille specific branding, and also Zynga-themed packaging that represents YoVille, FarmVille, and Mafia Wars. The most important thing to remember is that you cannot redeem FarmVille or Mafia Wars codes in YoVille. Only packaging that is YoVille-specific or contains all three games will be accepted. Some YoVille themed items include certain Slurpee cups, and most of the sweets such as brownies and other cookies in the bakery case.

YoVille 7-Eleven Brownie

Bring home your cup or packaging, and peel off of the sticker if there is one. The Slurpee cups do not have any covering over the codes, so proceed with caution as there is a possibility someone already copied the code down or took a picture of it. Once you have the code, visit the Buy Earn Play website, and log in using your Facebook login credentials. Be very careful to sign in using the correct Facebook account, otherwise the points will be attributed to someone else's account.
7-Eleven YoVille
Once you submit your code, it will be verified and you will see a screen that looks like the following:
7-Eleven YoVille
Log in to YoVille using the "play now" link and you will enter the game like normal. A "Congratulations" screen will pop up and show you the prize that you have earned. The exclusive 7-Eleven gift will show up in your inventory, and can be found under the "Special" category.
7-Eleven YoVille
There is a handy gift tracker that will show you exactly how many codes you have redeemed for each game on the Buy Earn Play website. Buy 7 different YoVille product types and you automatically unlock the uber gift plus a special limited bonus gift. There is no required Zynga Task for YoVille like there is for FarmVille and Mafia Wars.

How close are you to collecting all of the 7-Eleven YoVille items? Have any pictures to share with us? Email them to editors@games.com and we'll share them here on the blog.

FarmVille: Mozilla Developers Thank Zynga for Firefox Fix

Firefox and Zynga: Connecting the World Through Games
Mozilla's Firefox 3.6.4 came out last week on June 25th, with the team excited about a new crash protection feature meant to "reduce the number of Firefox crashes experienced by users who are watching online videos or playing games." Ironically, this crash protection ended up crashing most of Zynga's games (including FrontierVille), leaving a gray error screen, and the message, "The Adobe Flash plugin has crashed."

FarmVille Freak published a help guide for its community yesterday, shortly after the problem was officially recognized by Zynga. Players who hadn't updated their Firefox browsers, or who use Internet Explorer were unaffected and unaware of the issue. But the multitudes who had to deal with the downtime made their voices heard, and Mozilla itself has recognized Zynga's help in getting the Firefox browser speedily updated.

    We would like to thank vendors, such as Zynga, for working with us to ensure that Firefox continues to provide the best user experience for our shared users. [Source: The Mozilla Blog]

Mozilla developers reported that the crash protection feature was tested on "a beta audience of close to one million users." But it seems the browser's true testing ground was FarmVille's nearly 64 million monthly active users.

    Although complaints about Firefox's quick killing of hung plug-ins were not limited to Farmville, that game was the squeaky wheel that got the update grease.

    "A lot of people play Farmville. To ignore those people for any length of time could have a significant effect on Firefox's share of browser users," said Firefox user Jeff Rivett on Bugzilla Sunday. "The problem already existed, but the perceived impact suddenly changed, giving it a much higher priority." [Source: Computer World]

FrontierVille Fox
Speaking of which, one of those 64 million MAUs is gonna go chase some 'real' foxes off her FrontierVille homestead now. :)

FarmVille Mini-Foal breeds: Mini Foal, Mini Stallion Foal, Mini Cream Foal

In the most recent update, FarmVille released new Miniature Horses and Mini-foals and once you breed them you'll get a variety of new ponies to add to your farm. Below, see official FarmVille pics of the Mini Foal, Mini Stallion Foal, Mini Cream Horse, and Mini Cream Foal.

   
   

Please note the Mini Cream Horse and Foal can only be obtained from stables and nursery barns. You can get a side-by-side comparison of mini-horses and foals in the image below

mini horses and mini foals -- see all fo t heme below

How many Miniature Horses and Foal do you have so far?

FarmVille ousted as top Facebook application, Zynga under 200 million players

Honestly folks, I never thought this day would come, but thanks to a massive push by the Phrases application on Facebook (it has apparently gained 1.8 million players in just the last week), FarmVille has been ousted as the number one application on Facebook.

To be clear, FarmVille is still the number one game, and by a long margin too, beating its closest competitor, Texas HoldEm Poker, by 18 million players. However, according to AppData's latest figures, Phrases now beats FarmVille 54 million to 53 million players. A margin of only 1 million players may be nothing to become too alarmed about, but when FarmVille held down 80 million players earlier this year, it is at least something to take note of.

Additionally, Zynga, while still the number one app developer, has dropped below the 200 million player mark, in terms of monthly active users over all games. Zynga still holds a very comfortable lead over the new number two developer, Phrases, as they can claim 198 million monthly active players, but it is interesting to see how things have changed for Zynga over time.

Most of this seems to be due to FarmVille itself, which has lost 5 million players over the past month. FrontierVille too is on the decline, having lost more than 2 million players in the same time period.

Could this be why Zynga has decided to finally push full steam ahead with CityVille - an effort to bring back those players that they've lost, or even gain new players entirely? It's not a bad tactic either way, and we'll be sure to let you know if it works.

FarmVille Market update pretties things up, gets organized

Brand new Market
Navigating the Market in FarmVille could take next to forever for high-level players searching for those crops tucked into the farthest reaches of the shop, but Zynga aims to change all that with a brand spanking new Market. While it may not be live for all players, this new Market looks much better and overall will hopefully simplify the shopping process for players.

The first thing you'll notice is the Specials tab, which highlights three of the current deals or themes occurring at the time. Beneath that is a new "Best Sellers," which expectantly displays the current most bought items. Then, items are separated like normal, but can easily be organized using the new "Sort By" feature. This is essentially a drop down list of several ways you can organize the items in front of you like Recently Planted, Shortest and Longest Harvest Time, Price, Most XP Gained and more. While this all sounds geared towards crops, the list of options adapts to the type of item your browsing.

For those who visit the Market frequently, it will always resurface displaying the item you last viewed or purchased. But possibly the best feature is the Preview option for many items like buildings and decorations to give players an idea of how the item would fit in their farm. Check out the forums for more details on the updated Market. As for us, we've gone shopping.

Farmer's Hero for iPhone: Nifty FarmVille tool or malicious cheat?

At Games.com - The Blog!, we don't support cheating in Facebook games. However, we do want to cover everything there is to know about FarmVille and other top Facebook games. We don't want you to feel out of the loop on the latest tools and tricks for FarmVille. Farmer's Hero is an iPhone (and therefore iPod Touch and iPad) application that makes it easier to collect feed bonuses for FarmVille. What exactly does this mean?

The application requires you to sign in with your Facebook account. It then monitors all of the feed posts that your friends post on their wall and pulls out the ones that include bonuses. This means free bushels, fuel, pollinated seeds, and lost adoptable animals, among more. Farmer's Hero can automatically retrieve this for you as if you clicked them yourself, without requiring the tedium of clicking on each individual post.

Some people consider this cheating, because the application basically automates the process of interacting with feed posts. Every time Farmer's Hero claims something from a wall post, it means one less person can use it. This is more than frustrating if you're a legitimate player and every time you click on a wall post one second after it's posted you're greeted by a "this item has already been claimed" message.

Still, clicking manually on feed items doesn't require skill. It's a boring game of hunting and pecking, and Farmer's Hero makes it so that you no longer have to do this. Another application that does something similar is the controversial Gamer's Unite application.

If you're interested in finding out more about Farmer's Hero, you can watch this explanation video or check out the application in the Apple Store. Right now, the price is $1.99.

Facebook Friend Guide: How to find neighbors to play games with

Playing Facebook games is a lot more fun when you have friends who are playing alongside you. Couple this with the fact that many games incentivize you for having more neighbors, and it can make for a pretty terrible gaming experience if none of your friends want to play. Facebook isn't really designed to allow you to meet new people; Facebook's core intentions were to connect you with the people and acquaintances that you already know. This can make it challenging to find new friends to game with on Facebook, so we have a few tips that will help you get more friends on Facebook to play games with you.

Official game message boards

One of the best places to find other people to game with is on the game's official message boards which are maintained by the developer. On these forums, you can register and post in "add me" threads where other players will find them. If you go this route, remember to include a link to your Facebook profile otherwise they will not be able to add you as a friend. You also should ask them to put in the friend request what game(s) they play, so that you know who they are when they add you as a friend. You should be able to look through the threads and find friends to add as well.

On the wall of the game's fan page

If you go to the fan page for the game that you wish to find friends for, you can comment on the status messages, wall, and review page with "add me". You will see many other people doing this as well, so you can feel free to add them as friends. This is probably the fastest way to find friends. Sometimes, simply clicking "like" on a game's wall post is enough to cause a barrage of friend requests to fly in from all angles.

In "Add Me" groups

Most games (at least the popular ones) on Facebook have various "Add Me" groups that you can join to find other people to play that game with. You will have to join the group, but once you have joined you have unlocked a ton of people who play the game game as you. It's a nice way to exchange tips and tricks on the games too. See FarmVilleAddMe for an example of this.

On Games.com!

Another perfect way to find friends to game with is by commenting on this post! Leave a comment with your Facebook profile link and tell others what games you play. There's a good chance you'll find plenty of friends this way!

General Tips and Warnings:

    Remember that if you post on forums and external sites, you will have to delete your posts in the future if you want people to stop adding you as a friend.
    When you're adding strangers, it's best to make a special Facebook list/group for them and do not share any personal information or non-gaming status messages with them.
    It is possible that spammers will add you, so use careful consideration when accepting friend requests.

Do you have any other tips for finding friends on Facebook? Share them in the comments with our readers!

FarmVille Animals: Ornament Reindeer & a Partridge in a pear tree (sort of)

Ok, so maybe not IN a Pear Tree exactly, but a Partridge nonetheless... Wait, where was I? That's right - It's a Wednesday, and in the Holiday season in FarmVille, that means we've seen a new update hit the game, which has brought with it a couple of new animals!

The new animals are the Ornament Reindeer and the aforementioned Partridge. Unfortunately, both cost Farm Cash, so I hope you've been saving up for some new items, or that you aren't opposed to simply purchasing Cash outright so that you can enjoy their holiday festiveness on your own farm.

The Ornament Reindeer costs 16 Farm Cash, while the Partridge costs 12 Farm Cash. Both animals can be harvested from once every two days, and you'll receive 80 and 92 coins, respectively, every time you collect. If you're looking for a quick and easy boost to your experience point total in the game, you should also look into these two new animals, as the Reindeer rewards 1600 bonus XP while the Partridge offers 1200.

Both of these animals will be available in the game for the next nine days, at which point they will expire, and likely won't be seen again until the Winter Holiday celebration in 2011, if at all. Shop fast if you want to collect these new animals before it's too late!

CityVille beats FarmVille's best numbers, shatters and sets records

It looks like Zynga and the CityVille team have received a New Year's gift now, too. (In fact, CityVille doesn't seem to need an occasion anymore.) TechCrunch reports that CityVille has become the biggest social game to ever grace Facebook, breaking FarmVille's record-setting peak of nearly 83.8 million monthly players in March 2010 with 84.2 million monthly players. Zynga's most recent social-gaming juggernaut has been shattering records since it launched early in Dec. 2010, but this is a first for both CityVille and the Facebook game genre altogether.

We've all said that the growth has to plateau at some point, but continues surging upward, blowing away our expectations and doubts without much more than a few stutters, according to a chart provided by Inside Social Games (ISG). It's ISG that also predicts CityVille to reach 125 million players at some point in 2011. Well, if the game keeps soaring at this rate of almost two million new monthly players daily, it's only a matter of time before CityVille at least reaches 100 million. Either way, CityVille is already the most popular social game to date in the genre's infantile lifespan. That is until Zynga launches something else, of course.

FarmVille Valentine Animals: Valentine Elephant, Valentine Pony & Valentine Pony Foal

We're continuing to count down the day until Valentine's Day in FarmVille, and Zynga has made the countdown even more lovely this evening by adding three new themed animals to the game. Two of these limited edition animals can be found in the game's store, while the final animal can be received as an offspring of one of the two.

The two store animals are the Valentine Elephant and the Valentine Pony. Personally, it's a bit of a head-scratcher as to why they aren't called the Heart Elephant and Heart Pony, to coincide with the other themed animals released this year, as they are both covered in hearts, but I suppose we'll let that one slide. Both animals are premium, as you'd expect, with the Elephant being available for 18 Farm Cash, and the Pony being available for 24 Farm Cash.

The third animal, then (as you might have guessed) is the Valentine Pony Foal, which is available if you purchase a Valentine Pony and then randomly breed that pony in the Horse Stable (with either a Wandering Stallion, or some kind of permanent stallion you have on your farm).

Both of these animals will be available in the game for 14 days, proving that the Valentine's Day theme will be sticking around, even if only for a little while, after the holiday itself has passed. Still, wouldn't you rather purchase these items now than later?

FarmVille Valentine Decorations: Romantic Pavilion, Cupig, Anemone, and More

Tonight's FarmVille update brought with it a series of five new limited edition items - one building and four new decorations. If you're an avid reader of Games.com - The Blog! you'll recognize most of these items from various Sneak Peeks that we've brought you in the past.

To be specific, the new building is the Romantic Pavilion, which is a lovely white, pink, and green item that would fit in perfectly with your Romantic Gazebo, if you chose to purchase that item when it was released a few days ago. However, if you'd like to complete your pair of items by purchasing this Romantic Pavilion, you'll be required to pay 15 Farm Cash to do so. You'll receive 1500 experience points for making the purchase, but we all know that that's secondary to just how pretty this item really is.

Meet us behind the break for a look at the other newly released items.
The four new decorative items are split 3 to 1 in terms of which items are premium, and which are available for coins. The three premium items are the Cupig statue (think Cupid, only a pig) which costs 12 Farm Cash, the Heart Pool that costs 20 Farm Cash, and the Rainbow Finches decorative animal item, which will set you back 15 Farm Cash.

If you're interested in purchasing the Heart Pool, it should be noted that this is a simply massive item, compared to the other decorations that we've seen released in the past, and is actually bigger than many of the buildings released in the game. It's very likely that you'd need to move around some decorations in order to make it fit on your farm, but if you went through with it, you'd earn a whopping 2,000 experience points as a reward for your purchase.

The final new decoration is the Anemone flower garden. Comprised of pink, purple, and white flowers, this flower bed could really be left out on your farm all year round, well into Spring or at least until after Valentine's Day proper has come and gone. It doesn't scream of love and romance, which many will consider a good thing, and it can be added to your farm for just 10,000 coins (that's cheap enough to allow you to buy multiple!).

All five of these items (including the Romantic Pavilion) will be available in the game's store for the next 14 days. Make sure to pick up the items you'd like sooner, rather than later, so you're guaranteed to get the items you'd like.

FarmVille: Orchards will soon offer Watering Cans!

Perhaps one of the most disappointing things to come out of the Orchard and Mystery Seedling feature in FarmVille is the fact that it just takes so long to earn enough Watering Cans to make a dent in your Mystery Seedling backlog. After all, the more Orchards you have, the more Mystery Seedlings you will invariably end up with. But with each Seedling requiring 10 Watering Cans to grow to maturity, you can become bogged down pretty easily in what many users have started calling the "FarmVille Drought."

Zynga hopes to change this in the near future however, as they have announced via the official FarmVille Blog that soon, Orchards will begin producing Water for users to use for the Mystery Seedlings. In a nutshell, this means that if you don't receive a Mystery Seedling when harvesting an Orchard, you'll receive Water instead (as well as the normal coins).

It hasn't been announced how much water you'll receive for each Orchard, but we'll take anything at this point. Orchards should begin producing water next week - bring it on Zynga!

Official FarmVille Podcast (03/04/2011): Spring Garden revealed, no additional Pot of Gold prizes coming

In this week's installment of the Official FarmVille podcast, we saw the return of Community Manager Lexilicious as our host. Lexi was on-hand to give us a rundown of the St. Patrick's Day Pot of Gold event, and has confirmed that the Pot of Gold is now available for all players. If you were one of the players that received it later, make sure to check out our complete guide to the prizes inside. Lexi also let us know that there will not be a second page of prizes in the Pot of Gold, as there have been for the past couple of collection events - "That's pretty much it." While "pretty much" does leave some room for additional items, I wouldn't get your hopes up too far for anymore items being released for Gold.

As for news of future releases, we were given a sneak peek of something called the Spring Garden, which will show up "in the near future." The Spring Garden will be apparently be an elaborate decorative item that must be constructed with the help of friends. It sounds as though this item will be the Leprechaun's Cottage or Cupid's Castle of the upcoming Easter event, as we're told that you'll be able to collect eggs and flowers from the garden that can be redeemed for special prizes at a later time.

Additionally, a Spring Countdown will be starting soon, and will be accompanied by the release of new Mardi Gras items, as well as re-releases of Mardi Gras items that were made available in the theme last year. We're pretty sure that we know what most (or at least some) of these new Mardi Gras items are, as we've brought you multiple Sneak Peeks on the subject just this week. Make sure to check those out for a full look at what we expect to be available.

As usual, if you missed the podcast, which contained a full rundown of recent events in the game, you can check it out in full at the top of this post.

Which of these updates are you most excited about? The Spring Garden? Mardi Gras items? Spring Countdown?

FarmVille: English Countryside contest to give free trips to England

Zynga is really trying to get people to "Like" the FarmVille English Countryside fan page on Facebook. So much so that they have posted a teaser of an upcoming contest that will apparently only be available to those players who have clicked on the Like button. This contest hasn't started yet, but there is something you can do right now to make the contest better once it does launch - simply Like the fan page if you haven't done so already.

Zynga says that the more folks that Like the fan page, the better the prizes in this upcoming contest will be - we already know that the grand prizes include actual real-world trips to England, so if it can get better than that, then why wouldn't you like the fan page just to see what they can come up with? Here's the official word:

    Exciting news, FarmVille fans: The FarmVille English Countryside Sweepstakes will be starting soon! We'll be giving away great prizes including grand prizes of amazing trips to England. The English Countryside fan page will have all the details soon. Make sure you "Like" this page. The more 'Likes' we get, the more prizes we'll add to the sweepstakes!


See? All you have to do is "Like" the English Countryside fan page, and we'll all benefit in the end. We'll make sure to give you all of the details about this contest when it officially does launch, including how much of an impact all of those extra Likes had on the prizes, if they reveal that info.

Check out the rest of our FarmVille English Countryside coverage right here.

Would you like to receive a free trip to England, even if it was backed by Zynga?

FarmVille LE English Countryside Decorations: Spring Pond, Stone Pieces, Green Hill & More

Hold onto your hats folks - a whole slew of new decorative items have been added to FarmVille's limited edition English Countryside theme this evening, and we've got a look at all of them right here for your browsing pleasure. There is one thing to note though - unless you're particularly interested in building a recreation of Stonehenge on your farm, these items might not interest you as much as others. Either way, there are nine (yes nine) new decorations to take a look at. We'll start with the non Stonehenge-related items.

These three are the Spring Pond, the Green Hill, and the Narcissus Hood. The Spring Pond and Green Hill cost Farm Cash, at 20 and 2 Farm Cash each, respectively. The Narcissus Hood, meanwhile, costs just 5,000 coins. It should be noted that Zynga seems to have once again forgotten that they have already named an item the same in the past, as the Spring Pond was an item originally released as a prize in 2010's Pot of Gold event. Note that this new English Countryside item is different (the original Spring Pond had ducks swimming in it, while this new version has a duck statue in the center), so don't feel like you're purchasing something that you could've gotten for free, as that simply isn't the case.

Meet us behind the break for a comparison between the two items, and a look at the other decorations that are now available.



That slight goof out of the way, let's take a look at the six new rock pieces that are now available. All six of these items are simply called "Stone Piece I-VI," but you can purchase as many or as few as you'd like. Stone Pieces I-III cost 8,000 coins each, while Stone Pieces IV-VI cost 10,000 coins each. Again, you don't have to work on something as elaborate as Stonehenge if you purchase these decorations - you can purchase just a few to make a nice divider in a garden, or purchase the archway piece to form a nice entrance off of a path. The possibilities are nearly endless - you're only limited by your budget and your imagination!

All of these decorative items, including the Spring Pond, Green Hill, and Narcissus Hood will be available in the store for the next two weeks. Plan ahead if you know you'll eventually want to build something with the Stone Pieces, as you wouldn't want to have a stroke of brilliance months from now only to not have them on hand. Actually, I don't know how likely the rest of you would be to do that, but I totally would, so I'm off to buy some right now!

[Old Spring Pond Image Credit: FarmVille Fanatic]
Have you already planned out what you'll build with these Stone Pieces, or are the regular decorations more your style?

FarmVille Mystery Game (04/10/11): Yellow and Green decorations up for grabs

This week's FarmVille Mystery Game takes on a new theme, leaving the English Countryside theme (mostly) behind. This week's theme is simply "yellow and green," with six new items available to win. A single dart in this week's game has gone back down to the regular price point of 16 Farm Cash.

For that price, here's what you have a chance of winning:

Amazon Parrot (decorative animal)
Cob Cottage
Leapfrog Well
Lily Pad Bridge
Lounge Swing
Tulip Fountain

Personally, I love fountains, so seeing this Tulip Fountain definitely makes me want to throw a few darts at the board. If you're like me, we'll both have just a week to throw as many darts as we want at this week's game, as it looks like next Sunday will mark yet another change in the game, seeing six new items being released as prizes. As always, we'll let you know what those items end up being when the time comes.

Rumor: Xbox Live learns from Facebook, free-to-play games incoming

Microsoft may have taken another cue from Facebook. IGN reports that, according to a trusted source, free-to-play games could be coming to Xbox Live as soon as next year. As you already know, the free-to-play, or F2P, pricing model is generally left to Facebook games and MMOs. However, a number of developers including id Software and EA have experimented with the F2P model in the shooter genre. Of course, the free Xbox games would be supported by in-game purchases much like the FarmVilles and Bejeweled Blitzes of today.

It's already known that Dungeon Fighter Online, a F2P MMO for Windows released by Nexon last year, is in the works for Xbox Live. While a pricing model has yet to be announced, rumors like this flying around point to the same F2P distribution method. This and the recently leaked Microsoft video detailing future plans for Xbox all but confirm the rumor, though an official statement would be nice. And how do most F2P games, including social games, makes lots of money? By spreading the word through social channels, of course. If this truly is where Xbox Live is headed, social games could take over consoles. And Microsoft will usher them right in.

[Via Afterdawn]

Could you see F2P, or even social games, coming to Xbox Live? Would you play FarmVille over Xbox Live if you could?

Facebook game profits are big, but MMO gold farming is huge

Gold Farmers
In fact, a report (PDF link) by the Word Bank's infoDev finance program suggests that 75 percent of all virtual goods sales globally are from gold farmers. Gold farmers are folks who make money off of gathering gold in games like World of Warcraft and selling it for real world currency. The types of gold farmers range from those who do it for a wage to those who steal it directly from players' accounts to bots, or automated programs that do the in-game dirty work. Facebook games might be worth $5 billion in four years, but gold farming was worth at least $3 billion in 2009.

Because most gold farmers originate from poorer countries, infoDev recommends that these services be supported whose revenue could help the development of said countries. The only problem is that this practice is largely forbidden within the agreement that players accept when first signing up for their MMO of choice. The report goes so far as to recommend that the US companies behind these games support the largely Chinese gold farmers, which has all but become a business in the past few years.

However, considering companies like Blizzard make absolutely no money from gold farming, it's terribly unlikely that developers would support such a thing unless it involved them. Unfortunately, what's more likely to happen is that developers will cut out the $3 billion middle man and develop currency sales platforms like those in FarmVille and other Facebook games. The Facebook games and gold-farming industries are putting the pressure on subscription-based MMOs to adapt, which increasingly seems to be their only option.

[Via Gamasutra]

[Image Credit: Next Nature]

Have you ever bought gold for an MMO game or currency in a social game? Do you see gold farming lasting much longer as a business model?

FarmVille English Countryside: Pink Carnation Crafting recipes are a brewin'

We know, even the legendary Lionhead Ale is getting stale. Thankfully, Zynga has introduced four new crafting recipes to FarmVille and its English Countryside expansion that all revolve around a single crop: Carnations. The four new recipes are limited edition and only available for another 36 days, so get to planting those pink flowers (and the other ingredients, of course) on the double. In the meantime, we'll tell you all about these new crafting recipes behind the break.

Pink Carnation Tea (Pub):

    2 Field Beans Bushels
    3 Black Tea Bushels
    Completed in 6 hours


Pink Carnation Perfume
Pink Carnation Perfume (Spa):

    2 Morning Glory Bushels
    2 Sunflower Bushels


Pink Carnation Vinegar
Pink Carnation Vinegar (Winery):

    2 White Grape Bushels
    4 Rice Bushels


Candied Pink Carnations
Candied Pink Carnations (Bakery):

    2 Sugar Cane Bushels


Once each of these recipes is leveled up enough to reach Level 19, each one will receive its own Mastery sign. The question is, however, can you master all four recipes in the next 36 days? There's only one way to find out.

[Source and Image Credit: FarmVille Freak]

Check out the rest of our English Countryside coverage right here.

Have you seen or gotten started on any of these new crafting recipes yet? Which of these new recipes is most appealing to you?