Naast al het plezier om al die feestboek-games te hiden van mijn scherm zijn de makers met veel plezier hun dollars aan het tellen. De ultieme get-a-life-game Farmville is een mooi voorbeeld en de Fortune blog heeft een artikel online geplaatst over de farmville-developers:

On any given day 500,000 tractors are sold on the Internet. But don’t start buying stock in John Deere or Caterpillar just yet. These are $20 “virtual” tractors that belong to the 50 million players of FarmVille, the largest and fastest-growing social game on the Internet.

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Zynga reports that 1% of its 100 million unique users are spending real money on virtual goods in its games.
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For the record, unless this is another version of Farmville, the tractors, harvesters, and seeders do not sell for real money, only for the imaginary money(Farmville Coins) made within the game; unless someone is silly enough to spend real money for the Farmville Coins which, again, they can earn in the game.

However, after the small amount of free fuel, shared be all three ‘machines’ is used up, then you have to buy imaginary fuel to use the ‘machines’ or wait for your fuel to recharge. The purchase of this fuel is with Farmville Cash which is can be purchased using real money, earned through leveling up(5 to start plus 1 per level), or by visiting and participating(enrollments, purchases, etc.) with certain sponsors.

Het bedrijfje Zynga blijkt mooie steun te krijgen van LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman en PayPal cofounder-turned-investor Peter Thiel!