Out of boredom, to help a friend, or in the sense of pure exploration, I occasionally play social games on Facebook. Technically, I’m among the correct demographic for them, except for the part where I’m a self-identified gamer. So checking out the trends in these games is a matter of interest to me. Often these social games have some element of crop-growing or gardening in them, which seems to be capitalizing partially off the major success of Zynga’s FarmVille.
The simplest crop to grow in FarmVille is the humble strawberry. In FarmVille, strawberries take four hours to mature. In CityVille, you’re also presented with the option to farm, as a way of funding your city. This is a game I’ve played off and on for some time, so I’m familiar with its crops list. The first crop you plant is also strawberries. But, in CityVille, since it has a decreased focus on farming, the strawberries grow in a quick five minutes. Via Actionbutton.net’s extensive review, I discovered this weekend that the first gardening crop you plant in EA’s social venture, The Sims Social, is strawberries. Strawberries in this game also grow in five minutes.
The question I would therefore ask social game developers, if any should happen to wander by, is: why strawberries?
This isn’t just limited to EA and Zynga. In Digital Chocolate’s Zombie Lane (which is more hardcore than the other social games, because it has zombies), one of the game’s explicit goals is to grow and gather food. You’re under duress and trying to survive. It’s only natural that you would want to plant a food that would grow in, say, five minutes.
Here is my avatar planting some strawberries.
When she harvests the strawberries, some chicken pops out. Okay!
Later on I will receive a quest to grow more strawberries.
Sure!
I have two hypotheses about the ubiquity of strawberries. The first is that, perhaps, Zynga just happened on strawberries as a first crop at random, during the development of FarmVille, then stuck with it. Other social game developers, knowing that their target audience fears change and decision-making, decided therefore to make strawberries the early standard in their games as well, to ease in new players.
However, because I know that social games are based almost entirely on player metrics, every chart and diagram analyzed to death, I like to think that strawberries aren’t just a random choice. Perhaps somewhere in the design document of every developing social game, there is a mathematical formula that proves that strawberries, and only strawberries, must be the five-minute food. The metrics all line up. They’re bright, cheerful and attractive. They’re bite-size, which might lend well to the concept of a quickly-growing crop. They’re sweet and they’re good for you too! We brought in a panel of ordinary consumers to test our game and four out of five preferred strawberries! This message brought to you by the Social Game Council for the Advancement of Strawberries. If you’re looking to spread some sweetness beyond the game, check out these valentines cookies to ship.
Any other examples of this? Anything that bucks the trend? In Candy Dream, I planted chocolate bar trees, but in that game real fruit isn’t anywhere to be found.
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Send a message to the author of this post at aj@tap-repeatedly.com
That was awesome.
In all the Harvest Moon games, the first/fastest crop is turnips (4 days). Strawberries take twice as long, but have multiple harvests.
My knowing this should probably scare me and yet, somehow, it doesn’t. 😀
I guess radishes are out out of the running. I remember they were the go-to crop for the real-life novice gardener. Strawberries give more joy though. I associate strawberries with a lot of good things, come to think about it. Dessert. Love. Dessert. Dessert.
I have one of those Aerogarden things and I’m growing bell peppers IRL… does that count?
Steerpike: thank you!
And, you know, I have never played Harvest Moon come to think of it.
Can you build silos in one of these ____Ville games? Will our silo have a garden, or can we not afford the surface real estate?
The Titan missile silo I have my eye on for Tap-Repeatedly Headquarters includes 210 acres of surface, much of which would be suitable for gardening. We get 45,000 square feet underground, too. A bargain at $2.8M, just outside Denver.
My first guess would be the same as yours Amanda, that Farmvillllelllelle did it, so why not copy paste what works. As for the second guess, that too makes sense. Just about everyone likes strawberries, they have the red thing going for them, they’re soft, full of flavor, and they make you think of cartoons from the late 80’s?
As for Harvest Moon, it is a wonderful, highly addictive game. I spent months playing it before the whole farmville craze, and had to explain to people that I was playing a farm sim when they would ask. That never went well. I prefer the Game Boy advance version, and would recommend it!
Oh, for the days when the farming sim was a charming, innovative novelty, and not moving up the list of banes of my online existence…
I like everything about strawberries except actually eating them. It’s all those little gritty pips around the outside that make them so unappealing.
“You’re under duress and trying to survive. It’s only natural that you would want to plant a food that would grow in, say, five minutes.”
That made me laugh (note to self: strawberries = best food for apocalypse).
“When she harvests the strawberries, some chicken pops out. Okay!”
This also made me laugh. Excellent little piece Amanda.
Oh and I see Tim Rogers is as brief as ever.
I wrote for ActionButton briefly, and he told me my stuff was too long. The guy who wrote 10,000 words about Super Mario Galaxy.
You’ve got to be kidding me? Honestly? Like really really?
Really really. I sent in my “tryout” piece, and he wrote back: “Matt! I like your writing! It’s really good! However, it’s too long! Try to keep it under 1,000 words.”
Tim also uses very short sentences and lots of exclamations in his emails.
I only wrote a couple things for the site, though, a prolonged illness had my attention and by that point I felt kinda guilty, so I slunk away. I’m glad they’re still ticking along.