[Jiggly]

I remember playing this when I was still at school wow! Like you mentioned already, people still play this?

Strangely, I think it was mostly the parents of the 90s kids that got really into this. That and bejeweled blitz. The younger generations (for the most part) dropped it almost 10 years ago.

However, there's a lot of games that copy the model of farmville. Pay-to-play events, energy caps of some kind and an insistence on relying on "friends" to give you resources to progress. There's millions of these little suckers, so other than that particular title, I don't feel like farmville is ever going to be really "gone".

Zynga's mechanics have definitely influenced games internationally. Most mobile and social games utilize a similar pay-to-win strategy. Unfortunately, they contributed to making that approach more widespread.

This is so true. I personally, really thoroughly, dislike this strategy. However, it's pretty popular, and a substantial way to make money. This doesn't mean that strategy won't evolve over time too. It may evolve to something I don't mind. Who knows.