Here's a scene:a village where the sun always shines,crops always grow and your friends drop by to sweep your yard to the sound of guitar music.Animals do what they are told,there is no disease,and lendin’ folks a helpin’hand makes you richer and wiser.Welcome to FarmVille—
Current population 69m and rising fast.
“It reminds me of my childhood,”says one player, Lia Curran,37,a nurse from London.“Right now I'm growing wheat and flowers. I've got a small garden, and I'm raising some chickens and some cows. I like having the animals. It's relaxing.” Curran's animals, however, is nothing more than a collection of cartoons. FarmVille is an online computer game built into the social networking site Facebook and is described by its players as “addictive”. Launched last June by Zynga Game Network, FarmVille now has many players—more than the population of the UK. The players are largely women over the age of 35.
FarmVille unites the worlds of social networking and gaming.Players are given a ground with six fields,“cash”,a few seeds and a plough and have to build up wealth,skills and neighbors to create bigger,better,richer farms.Inviting your online friends to play means you earn more and get flee gifts;you rise rapidly through the first levels but,once hooked,have to work harder and harder with no final level or goal in sight.
“Games like this draw people into a fantasy world that's separate from real life where there are no issues,and where things are simple and controllable,” Brian Dudley says.In November,he opened the UK's first computer games addiction clinic,treating online gamers who stayed at the keyboard for up to eight hours a day—“the tip of the iceberg”,he says.Two weeks ago,a group of US players launched a class action against Zynga and Facebook.“Most,if not all,of the online advertisements presented through Zynga are scams(骗局),”the lawsuit states.“The advertisements are highly misleading and often result in users ordering goods or services that they do not want or need.”
According to Nick O'neill from the social media site All Facebook,Zynga is making $500,000(£304,000)a day,from its Facebook games,in turn spending some $50m(£30m)a year on Facebook ads.
If all that weren't enough,FarmVille doesn't even function like a proper farm:in FarmVille,wheat grows in two days—in real life,it takes months.But play continues nevertheless.
68.If you want to create a better and richer farm,you should do the following EXCEPT that ____.
A.you have to work harder and harder
B.you should pay real—world money to advance in the game
C.you should invite your online friends and neighbors to play
D.you should develop your skills and befriend FarmVille neighbors
69.Which of the following statements is TRUE?
A.Most young girls are fascinated by the farming game.
B.Money Zynga has made is mostly spent on advertising campaign.
C.There is potential threat to the players and some players are misled by the advertisements.
D.The UK's first computer games addiction clinic was opened to help treat online players.
70.The purpose of the class action against Zynga and Facebook was to_____.
A.show that Zynga has an extremely tight relationship with Facebook
B.try to stop Zynga and Facebook from putting advertisements
C.attract more people to FarmVille game to plant crops
D.appeal to the public to order more goods or services