Discussions about Farm Cash

[snow_angel]

what are their other games?

[StoneFace]

Originally Posted by Mr. H

My ideas have nothing to do with politics or any sense of entitlement and are solely proposed to address the fact that there are only 1.5M left playing the game. That's down from nearly 19M at it's peak. Every week, 20,000 more people quit the game then start the game. It is the 248th most popular app on FB. It was once in the top 20..maybe even the top 10.

I do not begrudge the developers a profit. In fact, I've contributed greatly to their profitability. I want to see them continue to be profitable and more players mean more profits. This is not a game, it's a business and as with any business keeping customers (players) happy is an important part of their success.

[1] There are undoubtedly many times more "apps" and/or games on Face Book now than there were 2+ years ago..... so to be fair... let's acknowledge the competition

[2] if Farm town is the 248th most popular, and you have the numbers at hand, perhaps you can share the numbers for:
[a] the most popular at the moment
[b] the average for the top 10 at the moment
[c] the duration, or life expectancy, of the top apps/games, and whether they even have 1.5 million after 2+ years on Face Book

If only 10% of the 1.5 million spend $10 that is back to the $1.5 million each year, and I could live on that.


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[Mr. H]

Originally Posted by StoneFace

[1] There are undoubtedly many times more "apps" and/or games on Face Book now than there were 2+ years ago..... so to be fair... let's acknowledge the competition

[2] if Farm town is the 248th most popular, and you have the numbers at hand, perhaps you can share the numbers for:
[a] the most popular at the moment
[b] the average for the top 10 at the moment
[c] the duration, or life expectancy, of the top apps/games, and whether they even have 1.5 million after 2+ years on Face Book

If only 10% of the 1.5 million spend $10 that is back to the $1.5 million each year, and I could live on that.


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The top game is Cityville with over 75M players. The number 10 game is Pioneer Trail with 21M. The average for the top 10 is currently about 38M.

I believe that when FT was at it's peak it didn't take quite as much to get in the top 10 but I'm not sure. I haven't been following the numbers that long.

Now, to address your question, there does seem to be some ebb and flow. I don't know that games have a life expectancy but they do tend to peak in popularity and then fall back.

Which brings us to the comparison that begs to be made. Farmville.

Farmville is currently 5th on the list with nearly 36M players. Farmville and Farm Town have both been around about the same time. Farmville peaked around 84M players while Farm Town peaked around 19M. Here's what's scary. Farm Town has lost over 90% of it's players from it's all time high and continues downward. Farmville has lost 57% and although they gain and lose they seem to be holding around that number. They gained over 500,000 last week.

[umm-e-uzair]

i read all th above n i just want everyone to plz understand, as sm of u hv already pointed out, tht this is just a game!!!!
i am one of those ppl who do not spend th real world mony on th virtual world,why hury??? i work my way to higher levels n save my farm cash n spend it only on things tht r more important. i dont rush to buy th nxt thing tht i cn afford in th few FC i hv saved up.. i plan while i am saving. wn i started off , v dint hv all thes tools n facilities n all n v r still playing. i am in my 230s now and i do get anoyed at times bcz i dont hv sm of th tools or facilities tht i need bt thn its just a game. n i f i am tht desperate, i cn always shop on my credit card. if not, thn patience is a virtue. trust me, th joy of leveling up to a new tool or facility is far far gr8r thn having just bought it.
y should v wory about how much th developers r minting, thy r giving us a chance to enjoy, we r availing it. simple! if any of us likes anything in FV or anyothr game, ...well v cn play thm too, right? in th meanwhile let us all enjoy wt v hv here, th juniors cn b a bit more patient, as we were and r. or cough up sm real cash. and please do not take examples from FV about neighbrly assistance. evn tho i hv ovr 40 neighbrs bt i still want my game to b independent of my neighbrs. n we r already including thm quite a lot, in our facilities n bonus requests n all. so ppl ease up, play n ENJOYYYYYYYYYYY

[Don't feed the beggers]

I think it's unfair to assume that we are losing players due to the fc issue. Games get old, people get bored, real life takes over is what we have to consider also. For the most part the game is 100% free, if you want the premium items than you gotta pay for them, so they haven' closed the game off to anyone, anyone can still play the game. People DO support this game and people WILL continue to support this game. For them to backtrack after they have made money on the game would be suicide....people would stop buying with money and use coins...the fc isn't expensive and every single one of us cannot deny that we have in the past and will continue in the future to spend money on frivolous items, things that we have nothing to show for things like coffee, lunch out, cable tv, satellite, movie rentals, basically anything that is not needed for our survival, I see this as being no different. If I can't afford my coffee for a week or 2, is it ok for me to go to teh boss and say "I deserve a free coffee I have been a customer here for years" or whatever you want....If it works nobody is gonna wanna mess with that and clearly people will pay real money to play, in the course of the past 2 years I have put plenty into the game $5 here and $10 there and sometimes $20 here etc etc and I will continue to do so as long as I am able, but if one day I can't do that than I guess it sucks to be me.

Its also not about where we are on the list, who really cares. Does it ruin the game if we are not number 1 but number 600 instead? no. The devs do not win a prize for being number 1, 10, 500 or 1 million. Its a number, a silly number that defines nothing. Any game will be quite popular in the beginning but that number will also fall as it ages....thats normal.

I personally don't care how much the devs make. I might be in awe at times, that I wasn't smart enough to think up a game of this nature but thats all. They created it, they keep it up, they earned every cent they have gotten. Just because people think they have made enough doesn't mean they should be forced to stop making money..when I hear them on the news about being young billionaires because of this game, I will be able to say I helped them get there!!

[tnbskts]

Originally Posted by JAS0643

This is not Slakhkey (codebell their other name) only game.

It's Slashkey's only game. A lot of people don't know about the connection with Codebell, and as far as I know their games aren't promoted at Farm Town and vice versa.

Unfortunately one of the things that probably makes the difference between Farm Town and Farmville is the sheer amount of advertising that Zynga is prepared to do, and the way the Zynga games require people to pollute their friends' feeds with pleas for help of one sort or another. When Farm Town had that issue with all the stuff on the feed when the belts first came out, the devs listened to the players and cut the number of levels that could be posted on the feed. Zynga would never have done that.

Hopefully as long as Farm Town has a loyal core of players, that's good enough to be going on with. If it becomes more like Farmville, it's going to risk losing the people who don't want to be playing the same game twice over and are fed up with all the pushy nagging.

[Mr. H]

Originally Posted by Don't feed the beggers

I think it's unfair to assume that we are losing players due to the fc issue. Games get old, people get bored, real life takes over is what we have to consider also. For the most part the game is 100% free, if you want the premium items than you gotta pay for them, so they haven' closed the game off to anyone, anyone can still play the game. People DO support this game and people WILL continue to support this game. For them to backtrack after they have made money on the game would be suicide....people would stop buying with money and use coins...the fc isn't expensive and every single one of us cannot deny that we have in the past and will continue in the future to spend money on frivolous items, things that we have nothing to show for things like coffee, lunch out, cable tv, satellite, movie rentals, basically anything that is not needed for our survival, I see this as being no different. If I can't afford my coffee for a week or 2, is it ok for me to go to teh boss and say "I deserve a free coffee I have been a customer here for years" or whatever you want....If it works nobody is gonna wanna mess with that and clearly people will pay real money to play, in the course of the past 2 years I have put plenty into the game $5 here and $10 there and sometimes $20 here etc etc and I will continue to do so as long as I am able, but if one day I can't do that than I guess it sucks to be me.

Its also not about where we are on the list, who really cares. Does it ruin the game if we are not number 1 but number 600 instead? no. The devs do not win a prize for being number 1, 10, 500 or 1 million. Its a number, a silly number that defines nothing. Any game will be quite popular in the beginning but that number will also fall as it ages....thats normal.

I personally don't care how much the devs make. I might be in awe at times, that I wasn't smart enough to think up a game of this nature but thats all. They created it, they keep it up, they earned every cent they have gotten. Just because people think they have made enough doesn't mean they should be forced to stop making money..when I hear them on the news about being young billionaires because of this game, I will be able to say I helped them get there!!

I don't care where they are on a list or how much money they make.

My concern is that if there aren't enough players the game won't be profitable. When it's not profitable it will be gone. It's happened to other FB games.

I don't have the answers. I just know that continuing to do the same thing will get the same results.

[knighta]

Originally Posted by tnbskts

The 3x3 tools are available for coins, and can be used on farmers' own farms. I agree it's a pain to not be able to use the coin tools on other people's farms, but we have 260 levels and counting, which is 260 free FC, and the 4x4 harvester and plower are 45 FC each. It doesn't take that long to get to level 90.

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At level 260 you can get more than 260 free farm cash. At level 1 you start out with 5.

[StoneFace]

Originally Posted by tnbskts

It's Slashkey's only game. A lot of people don't know about the connection with Codebell, and as far as I know their games aren't promoted at Farm Town and vice versa.

Unfortunately one of the things that probably makes the difference between Farm Town and Farmville is the sheer amount of advertising that Zynga is prepared to do, and the way the Zynga games require people to pollute their friends' feeds with pleas for help of one sort or another. When Farm Town had that issue with all the stuff on the feed when the belts first came out, the devs listened to the players and cut the number of levels that could be posted on the feed. Zynga would never have done that.

Hopefully as long as Farm Town has a loyal core of players, that's good enough to be going on with. If it becomes more like Farmville, it's going to risk losing the people who don't want to be playing the same game twice over and are fed up with all the pushy nagging.

That is probably the most important variable. I tend to think that the "great numbers" of those playing farmville are very temporary players who are simply looking for apps that might be of interest.

By the way, when I first started playing Farm Town, and required the 30 neighbors to advance... I asked a number of FB friends to just join FT so that I could hit the 30 mark. If memory serves right, I had more than a dozen oblige, and then let the game simple fade away on their own FB.

If a lot of us older players did the same, that could account for many of the 19million..... and in effect it says the game is much more stable over the last two years than the numbers imply.


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[Mr. H]

Originally Posted by StoneFace

That is probably the most important variable. I tend to think that the "great numbers" of those playing farmville are very temporary players who are simply looking for apps that might be of interest.

By the way, when I first started playing Farm Town, and required the 30 neighbors to advance... I asked a number of FB friends to just join FT so that I could hit the 30 mark. If memory serves right, I had more than a dozen oblige, and then let the game simple fade away on their own FB.

If a lot of us older players did the same, that could account for many of the 19million..... and in effect it says the game is much more stable over the last two years than the numbers imply.


.

That hasn't been my experience at all.

I'm at a very high level in FV, though not quite comparable to the 165M XP I have here, but I have quite a few very advanced neighbors that are very loyal to FV. Most don't play FT but of those that do, well they prefer FV. I have several that are well beyond the highest level to unlock anything and they continue to play every day.