Good Fences Make Good Neighbors: Values of Digital Objects in FarmVille 2

Key insights

7 takeaways

01
The study proposes that a strong pre-existing community may be necessary for virtual goods to acquire symbolic value, with FarmVille 2 played outside a friend network serving as a negative case to test this claim.
02
Findings come from a single researcher's two-month solo play period (October to December 2012), so the author explicitly states the conclusions cannot be generalized.
03
FarmVille 2's design, with purchasable or friend-requested progression and no direct player-to-player communication, turns neighbors into instrumental resources rather than social ties.
04
Because few shared contexts exist, the sign value of digital objects in FarmVille 2 is diminished, and some players respond by creating alternate accounts or avoiding spending to optimize the game as a system.
05
The author's own weak engagement with status-driven virtual goods on an alternate account without an established community suggests that the value of such goods depends heavily on social context.
06
The game's lack of a manual save option and automatic cloud storage obscure the material basis of virtual goods, reinforcing their intangibility.
07
The author concludes that empirical research with actual players is needed to determine whether social context meaningfully shapes how digital possessions are valued in social network games.

Summary

Jane Gruning's study examines how virtual goods acquire value in FarmVille 2, a free-to-play Facebook game in which players pay for access rather than ownership, with all objects stored on company servers. Building on literature about the ephemerality of digital objects and the role of sign value and community in shaping their worth, the analysis proposes that casual, easily interrupted games may weaken the close social bonds that typically give virtual goods meaning. The central hypothesis is that a strong pre-existing community may be necessary for symbolic value to attach to such goods, and that FarmVille 2 played outside a friend network could serve as a negative case for testing this claim.

The findings rest on a two-month solo play period from October to December 2012, supported by textual and structural analysis of the game. The study finds that FarmVille 2's design, in which progression can be purchased or obtained by asking friends, with no direct player-to-player communication, transforms neighbors into instrumental resources rather than social ties. As a result, the sign value of digital objects is diminished because few shared contexts exist to invest those objects with social meaning. Some players respond by creating alternate accounts or treating the game as a system to be optimized by avoiding spending. The author is explicit that these conclusions derive from a single researcher's experience and cannot be generalized.

The study's conclusions are correspondingly tentative. The author's own engagement with status-driven virtual goods on an alternate account, without an established community, was weak, suggesting that the value of such goods may depend heavily on social context. The analysis also observes that the game's lack of a manual save option and its automatic cloud storage obscure the material basis of virtual goods, reinforcing their standing among the most intangible of digital objects. The work concludes that empirical research with actual players is required to determine whether social context meaningfully shapes how digital possessions are valued within social network games.