Farmville Not Spoiled Gifted Blue Ribbon Finally Achieved

After playing Farmville for nearly a week and finally getting the hang of it, I achieved my first blue ribbon today, from the Not Spoiled Gifted ribbon subcategory. In order to receive this ribbon, I had to have 21 unique items in my giftbox. Items that count towards achieving the ribbon can be either gifted from your Farmville friends and neighbors or from the Farmville staff themselves. The bonus for achieving this blue ribbon includes 100 XP points as well as 10,000 gold coins.

Now that I have gotten all the ribbons possible from this ribbon subcategory, I can finally take my new gifts out of the giftbox and place them on my farm. This is perfect, considering I just purchased a 16×16 land expansion for a not-so-minimal 25,000 gold coins. I might also buy some new decorations for my farm and try to earn another ribbon or two or maybe a dairy farm for my cow and bulls.

If you’re interested in some Farmville tips and tricks be sure to check out our Farmville page.

Women Are More Hardcore Gamers Than Men

Yes, that’s right, I didn’t stutter. While men may spend more time playing virtual online games, women are actually more intense gamers.

In a recent study done by Dmitri Williams of the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism in Los Angeles, California, 80% of the 7,000 anonymous players of EverQuest II were male but females played an average of 29 hours per week, compared to males’ 25 hours.

Furthermore, the top 10% of females played for a whopping 57 hours per week, nearly 34% of the week! In Williams’ study, it was also observed that women tended to underreport their actual playing times, and did so more so than men.

Guys — what do you have to say to that?

Via UPI.

Chinese Social Online Games Will Be Policed By Government

With all the news about in-game fraud and other social online misdemeanors, the Chinese government is finally getting off the sidelines and doing their part to mitigate the crime.

All this negative press surrounding online gaming is rumored to just be an attempt to defame social games; industry insiders claim that some stories are fake. But get this, last month, a doctor’s fatal neglect of an infant that was in critical condition was said to be blamed on his distraction by Happy Farm, an online, browser-based game. It was later concluded that Happy Farm was indeed not the culprit, but rather a QQ Chinese Chess Game was. Either way, shame on you, Doctor.

What do you think about all this negative news about social and online gaming? It seems harmless enough if you’re not all caught up in the action, but if you are, there could be disastrous results. Even Happy Farm has been rumored to cause job losses and broken relationships.

Via WashingtonPost.

Top Three Chinese Browser-Based Games of 2009

Social online gaming this year in China has experienced significant growth and the trend is expected to continue into 2010. Initiated with the advent of Parking Wars (#4), a game that’s similar to its Facebook counterpart with the same name, social online games in China starting popping up like wildfires in California in 2009. Here are some of China’s top social browser-based games of the year:

1. Happy Farm: Developed by Five Minutes and boasting 27 million active users on a daily basis, this game is very similar to Facebook’s Farmville (29 million active users). One difference between the two games is that the Chinese version allows players to steal from each other’s farms, as well as add weeds and worms — makes some players glad to be playing the American version!



2. House Buying: This game is the most popular game on China’s most popular social networking site, Kaixin001. This game claims to be a combination of Happy Farm and Parking Wars, with its own game of buying a house — kind of like an all in one.



3. Happy Aquarium: Another popular trend in China is fish games. Happy Aquarium is kind of like Happy Farm, except it’s in an underwater setting and instead of working with plants, you work with fish. Perhaps it’s more like Facebook’s Fishville. The game has become so popular that 6waves, a Hong Kong developer, has transferred it to Facebook in Chinese (1.9 million active users).

Via VentureBeat.