Frisky Mongoose

I suppose that the 83 million+ players who are eagerly anticipating their next batch of mangos in Farmville just isn’t enough to qualify as mainstream enough for some. According to a Newsweek article titled “Money for Nothing The serious business of pretend products,” playing these games is considered strange and buying items for them is just plain weird. A quote from the article states:

If you’ve spent time on Facebook, you might be mystified by all the people tending to their virtual farms and virtual pets. I know I am. Not only does this seem a strange way to spend time, but here’s the even weirder part: a lot of these people are spending real money to buy virtual products, like pretend guns and fertilizer, to gain advantage in these Web-based games.

I can see how some can view social gaming is odd but it’s hard to deny its dominance in the free gaming world and hasn’t even reached its peak yet. Oh, and I guess there’s that whole $1 billion in revenue last year. Now who’s the strange one?

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