Farmville: Is it all a "scam"?

Look at this evil Farmville avatar as he grins widely with your cash in his back pocket. He's got a nice cash crop; over 60million users worldwide are signed up to the "free" social game. But how did the cash get there in the first place? You freely gave it to him. That's right, the impatient amongst us chose to pay for extra features to advance further and faster in the game. So where's the victim?

Social Gaming sites have been around a long time. I remember spending hours on Habbo Hotel when I was younger. And yes, I freely gave some of my money to buy some tacky virtual furniture to pad out my room. I was the sultan in the hotel, spending my parents cash on flash gear through my pay as you go mobile like there was no tomorrow. Should I not have paid for services on the site? Maybe. Should I not have spent with my mobile phone paid for by my parents? Definitely. Did I know I was doing wrong? Of course.

TechCrunch recently broke this story and Guardian have since contributed. Essentially Zynga's  Farmville is riddled with scams, mainly taking the form of surveys where the user gives his mobile details to a company in exchange for currency on the popular game. In some cases, this results in users being sent irrelevant texts charged at premium rates from the survey company, which quickly burns a hole in the consumers wallet. The deceptive nature of these offers, which TechCrunch go into detail clear detail about, certainly make them a "scam" by the very definition.

Scam - verb: to swindle (someone) by means of a trick

However, what I disagree with is the idea that the sheer concept of the game and the fact that it has been monetised makes it all bad. What I don't see as troublesome, is the idea that adults and children freely use their mobiles, credit cards or paypal accounts to directly purchase virtual cash for the game directly from Zynga or other service providers.

The prevailing counterargument is that the game is addictive in nature and set up in order to encourage players to get hooked and give up their own, or their parents, cash. Admittedly, as the game progresses it takes increasingly more effort to reach new levels, which can easily make users feel frustrated and lead them with the urge to use their own cash to enhance their online gaming experience. However, if they do decide to purchase game currency to advance, isn't it their own decision? And as for those young, easily influenced users, isn't it a parent's responsibility to monitor what their children are signed up to and when they are spending money without their permission?

"But wait a second, this product is targeted at children! And it's immoral to pray on a child's naivety," chimes a concerned parent. But since when were 'games' not targeted at children? The occurrence of deceptive behaviour is clearly on a child's behalf and not on the games company or mobile phone payment providers who've decided to monetised social gaming. The child realises there's a technological generation gap that separates them from their parents. They have grown up with the internet, computer games and social networking; their older and non-wiser parents have not. I hedge to bet that in many cases that the child knowingly takes advantage of their parent's ignorance.

Fortunately, their actions can be controlled through proper education and monitoring from their parents, especially in cases where children under-16 freely surf the web and use social networking services without supervision.

What parents should be aiming to do is emulate their child's web activity. They should get stuck into social networking and test the water of these games and their marketing strategies. Only then will they be better informed to advise their children on the suspect nature of online advertising and the importance of retaining important personal information. Most importantly they'll be able to tell them the age old philosophy that "if it looks too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true", which applies in the real world, also applies to the internet.

Parental ignorance is not an excuse. Now I'm off to go plant some Strawberry seeds.