After Zynga has launched Mafia wars, they could gather a lot of daily active users, over 6 million. And they are trying to broaden their customers to other areas of social game. Recently there are disputes between users whether Zynga is pursuing a social game or just selling game items. They are raking money by seducing users to pay for game items and level-up.
Anyway the game is very attractive to users from the young to old in the strong points of simplicity and interesting concept, cultivating various kinds of plants and vegetables and selling them. Through this process, a farmer(user) obtains money and can buy other seeds or trees and even buildings. Like Mafia wars, there is no certain objective of this game. Reiteration gives farmers larger farm and nice buildings.
Actually core function of this game is “Market”. It gives various items which is devided into two – the one which can be obtained by game money and the other which can be obtained by real money. This business model could be applied to wireless network contents delivery service. Giving a restrictedly-selected free contents is a good start for gathering customers. I’m not sure whether these series of Zynga’s social games sustainably survive and grow. Anyhow this type of game is making a new trend and will be tried by more players.