D. Keith Robinson

One of the biggest motivators, in my opinion anyway, for many social games like Farmville, is self-expression. For example, I’ve been playing a lot of We Rule and I’ve actually spend a few bucks on it to help the progress of my little kingdom along. Why?

Well, it’s not so much about the social aspects, which, while sort of fun are pretty light and mostly inconsequential. It’s also to really about the gameplay itself, which, again, is pretty light and inconsequential, being more of a time sink than strategic or skill-based.

It’s mostly because I like expressing my creativity in the form of a little kingdom I can carry around in my pocket. We Rule has a great balance; it’s easy to play, offers ongoing customization and doesn’t require too much investment (time or effort) to get a lot out of it.

I’d bet a similar motivation is at play with the hordes of folks who play Farmville. Now, for me anyway, Farmville is too much: too many options, too many nags, etc. But I can see and identify with the self-expression draw. And I think Zynga does as well; I mean it’s a no-brainer that they added the new Facebook “Like” button to individual farms. Which I expect to be a larger part of the gameplay going forward.

(Right now it doesn’t seem to do much in game, but I can certainly see meta-games coming out of it.)

Self-expression is what made MySpace huge, despite it’s horrible UX and it shouldn’t be a surprise that it’s a big part of what motivates people to keep playing games like Farmville.