Facebook Note: Dear Zynga

Written and published to Facebook on November 1st, 2011

Author's Note: This was a little bit more relevant at the time that it was written, if you can call it relevant at all; people eventually stopped playing so many of the Zynga games, but it wasn't because they listened to someone like me about the points that I made here. They only left because they got bored. 

That's how it works, isn't it? All the masses care about is that they are being entertained. If that's so, you should probably move along and not read what I have to say; my ultimate objective is never to entertain you. Not that I won't, but there's more to it than that. (It's like I'm saying, "In the end I want you to eat your carrots. That's not to say that I won't give you carrots cooked in sugar and butter, but still... eat your carrots.)

The following is a letter that I have not sent before, but I almost think I should have.

Dear Zynga,

I hope you are happy, now. Are you aware of the great accomplishments that you can now claim? You've succeeded where the great conquerors - from Nimrod to Nebuchadnezzar, from Alexander the Great to Napoleon, From Caesar to Hitler - have all failed. You have fulfilled your mission with more effectiveness than the fabled "I Love You" bug (do any kids born after the 90's remember that?), and without the terror that the alleged Y2K bug (this is really making me feel old; there are children who have never even heard of that) sparked among Internet users everywhere. Pat yourselves on the back, people of Zynga, and hand out congratulations to your designers; you have just overcome the glaring majority of humanity, and come the closest I have ever seen to world conquest. Well, maybe you're tied for first with Wal-Mart. Or TV in general.

People of this world have long been seeking the paths of least resistance, and you came to their rescue with the worlds that you created. Speaking from the standpoint not of a bystander, but rather a recovering addict, I would like to tell you a little of my own experience in your worlds. Having been a resident of Facebook communities since 2007, not long after the inception of this social net work (the play on the word "network" is intentional), I am well familiar with the trends that have risen and fallen across this imaginary landscape of pixels that are at times as mundane yet welcoming as soft blue borders encompassing white fields, and at other times have the vivacity (Did you know that you can use "vivacity" or "vivaciousness," and they're both acceptable? Not like that's important, but I just thought I would pass that along.) of disturbing MySpace style photos that my friends took while they were drunk. In this dreamscape that we are the artisans of, we have had our share of "natural disasters" and political movements and the like, almost as though this was reality. The effect of this was compounded with some certain notifications that I received.

Well separated from the "Poke everyone in sight," the "engage in SuperPoke wars," "download as many useless applications as you can," and, "Join my Zombies/Vampires/Werewolves/Mafia/Pirates/Ninjas/Other Generic Set of Characters," phases, yet not so far displaced from the torrents of "Join My Facebook Cause so we can pretend we're actually doing something about these things in reality," "Take my quiz to find out what superhero/fairytale creature/world dictator/race of person/video game character/etc. you are," and "Like my status and re-post" phases... you may recognize this, Zynga, as a point where you came in. Rather, to put it more accurately, as the point wherein you came to power.

I had grown accustomed, even calloused, to the continual and almost continuous bombardment of Game Requests, asking me to help further the quests of my friends as they ventured into haunted mansions or robbed innocent children. I nearly got to the point where I automatically clicked the "X" before even reading what the request was about, so that I could keep using Facebook for its other purposes, uninterrupted. Then one fateful day, a day that I would otherwise not have remembered for anything, I received one request that intrigued me. It was a Treasure Island request.

What drew me to it was nothing to your credit, Zynga; I had built up an immunity to brightly lit, colourful representations of how amazing your game is. I was slow to be swayed by your insistence that "Neopets will die if I don't click on the button and add your new app," even if you did show me cute, crying animals that you drew. The fact was, if I ignored such things, they might as well have not existed. No, what caught me was much more than that.

It was a pathos/ethos argument that you could never make on your own: my brother had sent me a request on Treasure Island to be neighbours.

Now, this was the first time in years that he had ever willingly sent me anything even remotely close to this. For years, he had been comfortable as my rival or even enemy. And now he said that he wanted to be a neighbour. ...Never mind what this request was about, was this something that I wanted? Yes, it was something that I had been waiting and praying for! I made a judgement call, then - which outcome did I prefer? Was it better to remain principled and never allow myself to get into the online gaming phase, the way Pirates vs. Ninjas once caught me? Or was it in our best interests that I somehow affirm that I was willing to be my brother's neighbour, if not my brother's keeper? It was a short debate. For once, I accepted the request, and... your people at Zynga must be skillful fishermen; that was a perfect lure for hiding the hook.

From thence onward, I became a little more hooked on Treasure Island. I didn't notice it, because it was so subtle, but by and by, I gained a little awareness of what was happening. It begins with a very small island for you to explore - I think it was about 12 square units in area, and about half of those areas contained treasure under them. I thought, "Ha ha, great! I'm doing such an amazing job at 'treasure hunting.' So great that I've just 'conquered' an island, found 'valuable' treasures, and can now move onto the next quest... in under five minutes!" I found, by and by, that I would only take about five minutes, ten at the most if I went up a level and regained energy, before I turned off the game for the day. I thought that it was rather harmless; what could five minutes out of 24 hours do to hurt me? Was I really losing anything? And after all, I was sharing items with my "neighbours." This was a good thing, wasn't it?

This also passed, until I found myself automatically clicking on Treasure Island when I found nothing else to do. I found that I started using those hundreds and even thousands of gold coins that I was beginning to accumulate, so that I could buy fruit seeds, plant in my imaginary garden and watch as everything was ready to harvest by the next day. (Did you people at Zynga ever think of selling your product to farmers everywhere?! Think of what you could have done to stop world hunger! ...I mean, if Facebook was a reality, that is.) There was a nasty side effect, though: buying this fruit and harvesting it daily meant that I would have my character eat the fruit and gain more energy, which kept me playing for a little longer, normally resulting in me gaining more experience points and gold coins. The only point of this game was to keep playing the game.

Is that how you view life? If it is, then I want you to know that there is more purpose than that, and if you only live to keep on living, then your existence has become dreary and empty indeed. Have anyone interested in finding out more about the purpose of life mail me back at the return address marked on my envelope. Or even more simply, you can begin by searching www.mormon.org, and you will have some good fuel to start with.

As I found that my "surrogate life" within Treasure Island was deteriorating - rather, it continued in the same way that it always had, but then I gained awareness - I started to look for opportunities to do something more. I went through one of the phases that we sometimes do in our own real lives; I tried surrounding myself with prizes and artifacts that I had accumulated in my journeys. These "chattels," as I once knew them, started to accumulate and increase in size and number, and I found that some of them would help me to be a better player, or so they claimed. Some would give me special items, some would help my stats to increase, some would just attest to my greatness. This also led to me seeking out building materials, even going so far as to ask my Facebook friends to join the game so they could help me build.

I think it was around that time that I realized I had a problem... I had begun to use your game only so that I could use it as a bonding experience with my brother - and now, at this point, he left that game behind, but there I was still! What was I doing?! I had initially intended to be the "non-player" who sent supplies when they were requested, and slowly degraded into a "browser gamer," then further into a more in-depth player. I'm glad that I had the presence of mind not to get Island Cash; there must be some people out there who don't seem to realize that you use REAL MONEY to buy Island Cash. That is to say, they voluntarily pay to keep playing a game that is free.

People actually do that?! The thing that gets me is that you didn't have to be especially subtle to pull this off. People have become so calloused or else generally ignorant that I'm sure it never occurs to them that when they offer their credit card to get those tantalizing green (fictional) bills of money, eventually they have to pay from real accounts to keep it up. I would say, "Very shrewd, Zynga," but I think it's more appropriate to say, "Way to exploit the unwary, you fiends."

I don't mean any hard feelings by that last remark. I'm not bitter about what you did; I caught myself before I let myself descend into that pit of avarice. I even had a little to be grateful for; I don't know if you receive notifications from any of the people who play your game, but I took opportunities with each notification that I was asked to publish.

Since I had already proved that in this version of life I didn't get very far with helping other people in a material way, had found the continuous digging and hacking to be crushingly dull after a while, and further showed that I didn't like filling my small and cramped island with trophies of my exploits, I decided to take a new approach. I could enrich the lives of Facebook users while exercising my creativity! I found my most common occurrence was harvesting my Gem Tree, that lovable tree that filled with gems every day so that I could unlock gates and "progress" in my journey for more treasure. Since this was something monotonous, I thought that I should do something to spice it up; I wouldn't be the only one getting bored with the daily reports of "[TAB III] just harvested his Gem Tree. [TAB III] got an Orange Gem!" The last time I checked, I had about 56 orange gems in my possession - and this was after travelling from island to island, depositing as many as 10 orange gems at a time into the various doors that blocked the path. If it was to become so common in our lives, why shouldn't I make it more interesting? 

For some reason there is a space at the bottom of all the notifications that can be published... Zynga, I think that the majority of users wonder what that is there for. As for me, one who would aspire to call himself a writer (although university professors are generally of the opinion that I can write - I simply have no clue what I'm doing), I looked at that little blank space and rejoiced. This was my element! You gave me an empty space to be filled with words! Here was my chance to exercise my talents and bless the lives of other people!

So I began, finding something humorous or interesting about something so common. I wrote poems about the colour orange, commented about how my redundant postings were like my new way of saying hello, and made jokes about money growing on trees. Later on, as I waded through more stories to post, I came up with my first joke in Spanglish. ("Oh no, this toucan lost her family! Can anybody out there help her?! ...TU-can!")

I pointed a finger at myself and laughed when I saw myself asking for seeds so I could build a Kiwi Menagerie, or when I helped Sharktooth to become a real pirate shark, or helped my Travelling Dolphin recover from his attack by monkeys. I laughed out loud and shared the laughter when I had to save my friends' islands from midget pirates, wild parties, and yes, I can't believe you were able to get away with this - being overrun by rogue soccer balls that fell out of the sky?!?! I was taking my exploits in this little imaginary world and framing them for a little while so that the world could laugh with me. For that phase of my imaginary life, I want to thank you, Zynga.

However, this passed like all the other phases. That must have got old even to my most devoted followers. (That's just a figure of speech, Zynga; the closest I have to "devoted followers" in reality are borderline stalkers that I want to leave me alone.) There came a point when I thought to myself about those five minutes of each day that I spent digging for treasures that weren't real. I thought how that time was augmented by those little moments when I tried to come up with something witty or inspirational to say about my exploits in this world, to make it seem as though I had invested my time in something useful. I thought about the small amount of imagination that I expended in wondering what lay within Atlantis, or thinking about what I could do with all of the coins I was accumulating. 

And in the midst of these thoughts, I found the streams interrupted as you compelled me to go on quests so that I could continue adventuring. This was like the time that I found out there could be no more freely organized scrimmage games in the school fields; we had to be part of the official school teams or else get off of their training grounds. So, quests only, you said? Then not only would it be, as I calculated, 35 minutes per week, approximately 1050 minutes per month, and if I were to play daily, 12 600 minutes - which is 210 hours, or the equivalent of 8 days and 18 hours - in one year, I would be spending even more time than that in your world as I embarked on imaginary quests to help the Pharaoh stop being naked (that was a little twisted in itself) or helped the local butcher get set up with a wandering minstrel who had feelings for her. Was this really worth it to me to find the occasional inspiration as I learned about Orange Gems, monotony, working alone at something that had no worth, and levelling up in things I never wanted to have in the first place?

Zynga, I almost want to say I'm sorry, but I know better than that. I was about to say, "I'm sorry, but I must be moving on to other Dream Worlds; the ones that I write about have potential to become real in the minds of a readership." The only problem with that sentence is that I am not one bit sorry to be leaving. In truth, I'm ecstatic to think that I managed to escape when I did! I still have the fibres of my being intact, to say nothing of the money that I did not spend, or the addiction that I refused to develop in full. This is a happy ending, like the horror movie that was averted because someone had a smart idea in the beginning, or because one of the chief characters didn't overlook some obvious way out of the plight.

So... this is a slightly bittersweet farewell, but it's sweeter than it is bitter to bid you good-bye and move on to other things. I will compliment you on being so apt at your craft, as your traps seem to be one of the most effective sort that I have ever seen, so cunning that I could almost believe you learned the art from a former friend of mine named Lucifer.

I don't even mean that as an exaggeration; Lucifer has been known for his cunning tactics and plans, like the initial bait that costs nothing, and the follow-up that is likewise free, and the cost which only begins soon after that, and this kept minimal. I know how that one works. I also know of the plan to make victims become accustomed to the stimulus so that by and by they must seek more and more powerful stimuli. Your quests and bids to expand my home island weren't the first times I encountered these tactics. I know how this works. Trust me when I say that I learned from the best; you can't find better training than the kind found through antagonism - and the rare, but nonetheless unfortunate camaraderie - with the Master of Ruin.

And so I say, Zynga, that I commend you for your skill and artifice. Not that I appreciate your work, but I can respect what you are doing, the same way I might respect a hurricane destroying the Atlantic coast of North America. That is to say, I don't like what you're doing, but I can't help but admire the power and dexterity with which you wield this power. It's like watching that hurricane rip through those eastern States; I don't like watching the home of some people very dear to me being destroyed, but there is a morbid fascination in watching wind hurl cars and roofs and trees without effort. Still... what does one do when they see this kind of destruction?  Anyone who's experienced it likely "fled, and got him [or her] out." (Genesis 39:12)

Adieu, Zynga. You'll have to forgive me if I take the time to warn my brethren and sisters of the traps that you have laid out - not only in Treasure Island, but in FarmVille, CityVille, YoVille, CarVille, and who even keeps track of what else. I don't condemn you, as this is only the "appearance of evil," not evil itself. Besides, I know that you aren't all bad. Even so, I think it's time that we parted ways. Have fun doing your thing, and... well, now that I think of it, if anybody comes in need of extra building materials, feel free to send me a notification that incites me to help my neighbour. Just don't expect me to fall back in; I'm wiser to your game, this time - if you know what I mean. ;)

Best wishes as they may be afforded you,

TAB III