My point here is that Google has nothing like this. The incentives to involve your friends are also quite high and I could absolutely envision people just using money (like real dollars on real credit cards) to bypass some of the more tedious requirements and just pay for the items they need (most importantly, the energy they need to keep playing). It's a total time drain, but Cityville has entertainment, social, and educational value that exceeds just about anything Zynga has done to date.
![cityville game cards cityville game cards](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/dVMAAOSwqSlgIYQd/s-l300.jpg)
Though obviously a caricatured simulation, there are important elements of trade, commerce, and urban development that you explore. I could even see myself using this with students. A dedicated tree hugger, I found myself chopping down as many trees as my energy levels would allow to generate additional money to fund further development. development, and even partnerships with "neighbors".it was all there. Commerce, construction, supply lines, agriculture, conservation vs. There were immediately many more aspects of the game to manage and coordinate than Farmville offered even at advanced levels. Then again, I rationalized, with Google investing in Zynga and clearly building some sort of web-based gaming/social platform, playing Cityville just might be considered research, right? I expect that social gaming has come a long ways since I last played Farmville and I owed it to my readers to be able to speak with firsthand knowledge about this stickiness and monetization potential of Facebook vs. I barely have time for Facebook as it is, but how else will I keep up with all the friends from high school who I'll never see again?
![cityville game cards cityville game cards](https://miltonwares.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/20181007_042740-1024x1024.jpg)
Social commerce beyond picking which crop I should plant and making sure that my youngest son popped into my account once in a while to plow under my whithered crops? It sounded interesting.īut no! I needed to be strong! No Zynga, no 'villes. Then my oldest son happened to be playing it tonight and told me that he needed neighbors and wanted to set up a franchise, so I should really join.įranchises? Hmmm. I kept ignoring him, fresh from finally getting Farmville to stop sending me messages. ZDNet's resident Millennial has sent me a couple of invites to Zynga's latest social game, Cityville.