The Medium of the Video Game
"Alone together?": exploring the social dynamics of massively multiplayer online games
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Facebook Applications and playful mood: the construction of Facebook as a "third place"
Proceedings of the 12th international conference on Entertainment and media in the ubiquitous era
Virtual item sales as a revenue model: identifying attributes that drive purchase decisions
Electronic Commerce Research
Proceedings of the 13th International MindTrek Conference: Everyday Life in the Ubiquitous Era
The many faces of sociability and social play in games
Proceedings of the 13th International MindTrek Conference: Everyday Life in the Ubiquitous Era
Communications of the ACM
A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and Their Players
A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and Their Players
Social network games: exploring audience traits
CHI '10 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
The "S" in Social Network Games: Initiating, Maintaining, and Enhancing Relationships
HICSS '11 Proceedings of the 2011 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Heuristics for social games with a purpose
ICEC'12 Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Entertainment Computing
Exploring playability of social network games
ACE'12 Proceedings of the 9th international conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment
Social Network Games: Players' Perspectives
Simulation and Gaming
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Despite their rapid evolution and wide popularity social games played on Facebook have so far gained relatively little interest among academic game researchers. A close reading of the Facebook game FrontierVille aims to provide some starting points for the study of social games. The paper starts by outlining the rationale behind the economy based on virtual object sales and examines how also the non-paying players are affected by the system. Second, the paper considers the different forms and functions of sociability present within FrontierVille. Finally, the study explicates how FrontierVille both allows flexible playing patterns and actively builds particular rhythms of play. All in all, the paper argues that design, economics and playing of social games are tightly interconnected and should be studied in relation to each other.