0503 farmville

Zynga, the company that produces several online games that can be played through Facebook, has come up with a way to make the game-playing experience smoother and easier for someone like me.

One of the games is FarmVille. It’s designed in such a way to get you to come back often. There are two forms of currency: FarmVille Coins and FarmVille Bucks.

Farmville Coins are easy to get and accumulate. Plant crops by paying to plow and seed, then harvest (after waiting the appropriate amount of time). The revenue from harvesting is more than the cost of plowing and seeding, so it’s a way to make FV Coins, which can then be used to “buy” some items for your farm.

Unfortunately, some items can only be obtained using FV Bucks. FV Bucks can be “made” only two ways. You can get one FV Buck fr every 1-2 days that you log in to the game, or you can buy some with REAL currency, using a credit card. I avoid sending credit information over the Internet, for obvious reasons. So I’ve made myself content with generating the FV Bucks slowly.

Zynga came up with a third option that subdues my paranoia. Cards with FV graphics are now available at Target, 7-Eleven, Best Buy, and GameStop. This allows someone to purchase a card at a retailer using cash, thus avoiding any exposure of credit information. A $10 FV card has a code (exposed after scratching off a cover) that will credit your account with 55 FV Bucks. Sweet.

I was talking to a friend (also on FarmVille) about stuff and the conversation changed to the cards. I asked her if she saw them. She replied that she did and, “What kind of loser would get one of those?”

I replied, “So this wouldn’t be a good time to ask you to pick one up for me?” Lol.

I got a card on my own a few days later. :D