Remember all those Facebook browser games from 2010? If you answered yes, you probably have knee or back problems (unrelated).
If you were anywhere near Facebook from 2009 onwards, you were either addicted to FarmVille or subjected to the torrent of notifications from your friends asking for your help in the game. FarmVillewhich asked you to build land, grow crops, and raise animals, was just one of many social media browser games that popped up over a few years that I call the golden age of Facebook games.
While Zynga’s farming simulation – which actually predicted the popularity of games like Stardew Valley nearly a decade later – was the golden jewel in the crown of Facebook games, alongside games like Happy Aquarium, PetVille, FrontierVille (you can see a trend forming here from Zynga), and Mafia Wars. These headlines were all apparently intended to encourage Facebook users on a still relatively new social media platform. to spend more time thereinteract with others and ultimately keep them coming back again and again. And oh my gosh, they really did.
FarmVille would have reached a peak with nearly 85 million active users as of March 2010, 32 million of whom used the game daily. City The same threshold was crossed in early 2011, when Facebook gaming became ubiquitous. Scrolling through the old, unfiltered Facebook photo albums of many millennials and beyond, one discovers a litany of screenshots, proudly displaying their hard work on their farms, homes, aquariums, or whatever else finally hooked them.
Playing games together used to be the preserve of console multiplayer titles or early iterations of MMORPGs. And while early multiplayer games should be given credit for paving the way, social gaming has brought that same sense of social connection and togetherness to a whole new demographic of gamers. Kids (who were, as in my case in 2009, certainly When kids (over 18) and their parents played together, friends separated by thousands of miles could play in parallel. The casual gamer was perfectly at home on social networking browser games, as Yahoo! Games and other websites had been experimenting with for years with varying degrees of success. For a while, everyone was working toward the same virtual goal, and the world seemed pretty good—something I see in brief glimpses of tight-knit gaming communities in games like Helldivers 2 NOW.
From my own personal experience, the only reason I obtained Facebook (my first social media account) was there to play FarmVille and I sent my equally absorbed sister gifts and help with her farm. Many games had urgent tasks that failed if you didn’t return on time, which encouraged players to come back as quickly and as often as possible. I set alarms so I wouldn’t forget my crops, and I still have a vivid memory of my sister giving me her own Facebook login when she went out in the evenings or on weekends to tend her immaculate plot. Hell, we even convinced my mother to take an interest in it—even though her tastes were more PetVille And The Bubble Witch Saga leaning.
Facebook Games still existsBut with the rise of mobile gaming in the years since the golden age, most casual gamers have turned to individual apps like Bejeweled or the ever-popular gacha games that are grossing millions, if not billions, worldwide. Many titles from yesteryear (including FarmVille) have now been defunct in their original Flash game form since New Year’s Eve 2020, and while for some, new iterations now exist in various hyper-monetized forms (although many of these games were riddled with microtransactions to begin with), it’s just not the same.
While logically, Facebook Flash games are probably where the constant feedback loop of social media and the internet in general really took root in many people’s psyches, and slowly introduced many of them to the world of microtransactions, that era of gaming will always hold a special place in my heart. There’s something truly unique about bombarding your friends with pictures of the same cow on your land, or your weird little animals, or whatever else was happening at the time, on your Facebook newsfeed and through their notifications.
Have you also been seduced by Facebook games in the 2010s? Tell us about your experiences below.
Note: This article was originally published on the site on May 16, 2024. It has since been updated.
Image: Zynga / Meta