Warning over Facebook FarmVille game

Popular Facebook game accused of encouraging young people to spend real money on virtual cash

FarmVille, a free online farm simulation game available through Facebook, has been accused of generating "hundreds of millions of dollars" from unsuspecting players, many of whom are children.

FarmVille has soared in popularity in the UK and US since its launch in June and has 63 million users, many of who are young teenagers. The game, which is the largest on Facebook, allows members to manage a virtual farm by planting, growing and harvesting crops, trees and livestock. According to Zynga, the company which developed the game, users have built more than 40m virtual farms, more than 20 times the number of actual farms in the US, and on an average day purchase 500,000 tractors to till their land.


On the surface, it seems a harmless, even beneficial, game, encouraging social networking, budgeting and planning.

But Michael Arrington, founder of the Techcrunch blog, has criticised Zynga for "monetising" FarmVille. He said it encouraged players to buy in-game currency, Farm Cash, which allows players to progress faster. New users are given some virtual coins, but users who are desperate to buy the tractors, seeds, cows and sheep more quickly can click on the "Add Farm Coins and Cash" link to buy virtual money with real cash. FarmVille makes clear in its terms and conditions that Farm Cash cannot be redeemed for "real world" money, goods or other items of monetary value from Zynga or any other party. Once real money has been used to buy virtual money, it is gone.

Farm Cash can be bought using credit cards or phone contracts, or accumulated by signing up for free trials with third parties, some of which require the player to hand over credit card or mobile phone numbers. This can result in a charge to that account if the player forgets to cancel the deal once the free trial ends.

In a post on Techcrunch, Arrington said: "These games try to get people to pay cash for in game currency so they can level up faster and have a better overall experience." However, people who do not want to pay by card, or young people who don't have their own credit card, can sign up for "offers" from advertisers to get more of the currency, or can pay through "pay by mobile" companies.

"Most of these offers are bad for consumers because it confusingly gets them to pay far more for in-game currency than if they just paid cash (there are notable exceptions, but the scammy stuff tends to crowd out the legitimate offers)," he said.

One of the companies that allows players to buy Farm Cash through mobile phone contracts is Boku.

Boku's terms and conditions stipulate that users must be 13 and have their parents' consent to use its services, or 18 without parental permission, and Facebook has a minimum age of 13 for users. However, in practice it is possible for young people to get around these rules and sign up without consent.

A spokesman for Facebook said: "Children under 13 are not permitted on Facebook and we have, and will continue to, investigate and disable the accounts of users believed to be under 13. We also encourage parents to talk to their children about safe internet use and to report to us any potential issues including usage of the service by their own kids."

Boku also said it does not target an under-age audience, and added: "We do not work with any publishers who target customers under 13 years of age. There are some publishers who target this audience and have requested to work with us, and we are building software to require and identify their parent/guardians' mobile numbers (this is an extension of some of our current technology which is able to distinguish between landline and mobile numbers). Until this is complete, we will not partner with publishers who cater to an audience under 13."

Generating Farm Cash through signing up for product trials with third parties is portrayed as being free or very cheap, but in fact is can be costly if users fail to cancel subscriptions at the end of the trial period.

Facebook said it had "clear policies in place to protect all users from inappropriate advertising content". "Since introducing updated policies for third-party ads on Facebook Platform in July, we've consistently taken necessary steps to ensure user trust is maintained with applications."

It added: "We've prohibited two entire advertising networks from providing services to applications on Facebook Platform because they were not compliant with our policies and failed to correct their advertising practices. We won't hesitate to continue vigorous enforcement."

Zynga refused to comment on the accusations beyond what its founder Mark Pincus said on his blog. There he agreed with Michael Arrington's comments about the third party offers, but added that such advertising comprises a small part of Zynga's revenue. "So why does Zynga offer these ads? Most of these offers are good for the advertiser and user," Pincus said. "There are many users who don't have access to online payment methods who are still interested in making in game purchases."

He added: "We have worked hard to police and remove bad offers ... Nevertheless, we need to be more aggressive and have revised our service level agreements with these providers requiring them to filter and police offers prior to posting on their networks."