Online Farming: From Acquisition to Monetization
Online farming is all the rage these days—farming games are easily among the fastest growing applications on the Facebook platform. Take Slashkey’s Farm Town, for example. Legend has it that Slashkey, an independent developer, started the farming game by sending invitations to just twelve friends in February for testing. By April, its user base grew to 3 million with absolutely no advertising. To top it off, the game was invite-only and unsearchable on Facebook. After Farm Town finally became public in June, it debuted as the #4 game on Facebook with nearly 8 million users, and its monthly active user count is now nearing 15 million.
Another farming game that has seen enormous success in terms of growth and user acquisition is Zynga’s FarmVille. Only a month after launching, FarmVille has acquired 16.3 million users and is now one of the top three games on Facebook. FarmVille is arguably the fastest growing Facebook game ever, thanks to targeted performance advertising and heavy cross-promotion throughout the Zynga network. Zynga’s CEO Mark Pincus said in a recent interview, “We do spend a lot of money on advertising when we want to, like when we launched Farmville. We spent a couple million dollars advertising it and we're not shy about that.”
According to Justin Smith of Inside Social Games, Facebook applications can have monthly ARPUs (average revenue per user) ranging from $0.30 to $2. Farm Town and FarmVille, each with over 14 million users, can generate tremendous revenue for Slashkey and Zynga by optimizing their monetization practices.
According to Justin Smith of Inside Social Games, Facebook applications can have monthly ARPUs (average revenue per user) ranging from $0.30 to $2. Farm Town and FarmVille, each with over 14 million users, can generate tremendous revenue for Slashkey and Zynga by optimizing their monetization practices.
Because gameplay for these two games is comparable—users spend coins to tend or expand their farms and gain coins by harvesting and selling their crops—the natural touchpoints for monetization are also comparable. In Farm Town, users can click on the “Earn Coins” tab, and they can buy coins using a variety of payment methods (credit card, PayPal, mobile, home phone, etc.) or earn coins by completing an offer.

Similarly, FarmVille users can click on “Get More Farm Coins” to buy or earn farm coins and farm cash (premium currency).
They can also click on the “Add Coins & Cash” button. Placing a call-to-action button directly below the coin count is a great way to monetize users who are not satisfied with the amount of coins they have.
Improving Monetization Practices
Although both games are doing many things right, like offering a handful of alternative payment options, they could improve with regards to integrating monetization opportunities more deeply. For example, if users go to Farm Town’s store or FarmVille’s market and attempt to buy items that they cannot afford, they should immediately be given the option to buy or earn more coins. Barn Buddy, another popular farming game, gives users direct access to the payment page from the shop.
Farm Town and FarmVille could also integrate advertiser offers directly into high-traffic screens—for example, Farm Town could place an offer directly in the marketplace, where users can hire workers or find jobs. With so many users willing to spend time and energy in order to work for more coins, the game developers can capitalize on this monetization opportunity.
Who knew that farming would be the killer app for Facebook? Slashkey and Zynga have achieved great success in this up-and-coming category of games, and it will be interesting to see how they keep their users hooked.