Farmville, Frontierville, and Mafia Wars: What's Your Favorite?

The Farmville, Frontierville, and Mafia Wars are the most popular games on Facebook. Everyone knows someone who plays one or more of these games. Perhaps the game junkie is you. No worries you are in great company as millions of players play them on a monthly basis. These are popular because Zynga knows how to create the games, which enthrall players around the globe.

What draws players to these games? Does everyone have a secret desire to be a farmer, eek out a meager living out in the old west, or terrorizes the others in a crime-ridden world of the mob? The draw I think is the ability to leave reality to have fun and the competition between family, friends, and other neighbors is always good.

Mafia Wars was the first of the three games mentioned in this article. In this one, players invite their friends to become members of their mafias. The bigger the mafia the more a player can accomplish within the game. As players perform missions or fights with rival gang members they gain experience which enables them the rise levels, which in turn locks new equipment and missions. This game was released in the summer of 2008 on Myspace, came to Facebook in the summer of 2009, and remains a popular game in 2010.

Farmville was released in the summer of 2009 and quickly rose in popularity. This game allows players to plow plant and harvest a variety of crops. There are also many types of trees one can purchase, plant, and harvest. What would a farm be without the cows, horses, chickens, pigs, goats and other animals that usually appear on a farm? Players will find them here within Farmville and the animals need to be cared for on a daily basis. The animals here move around the fields, and make the sounds that real animals would.

Frontierville is the newest of the three games and was released in early summer of 2010. In this game, players establish a homestead out in the wilderness. There are bears, snakes, and fox, which threaten the survival of your farm animals. There are several missions to accomplish and each one gets the player one-step closer to the next missions. As players' clear trees, wild flowers, rocks and other debris around their homestead, they gain special items, which are part of collections. Once these collections are filled, a player is rewarded with things they can use in the game.