News: Shocking FarmVille Facts!

Did you know it only took five weeks to make FarmVille?  That it currently has over 80,000,000 users?  That FarmVille farmers outnumber real farmers in the United States by a ration of 80 to 1?

Crazy, right?

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.  There's plenty of other odd and shocking facts surrounding Zynga's FarmVille on Facebook.  Were you aware of any of these?  I wasn't, until I did a little research.

FACTS

• FarmVille only had five weeks of development before going live on Facebook.  And no Zynga game has ever taken longer than six months to complete.
• Zynga's development team for FarmVille and other social games consists of roughly 25% women, which is more than on a typical team.
• FarmVille farmers outnumber real farmers in the U.S. by a ratio of 80 to 1.  And a lot of those real-life farmers actually play FarmVille themselves, according to the New York Times.
• Over 80 million users play FarmVille, and about 1/4 of those log in everyday.  There are more than 400 million active Facebook users, so that means 1 in every 5 users plays FarmVille.
• FarmVille isn't just for farming, it's also a way to create creative, artistic crop designs.  Crop circles?  Not exactly.  More like the Simpsons.  And South Park.

• Not everybody likes FarmVille.  There is even a Facebook group (with 100,000+ fans) devoted to hating it, called "I Hate Farmville".

• There is an actual town named Farmville in Virginia with a population of 7,396 (in 2008).  There is also a Farmville in North Carolina.

• Brandweek reports that of all the women who play FarmVille and other social networking games, 90% never click on any ads or complete any surveys for virtual money.  The other 10% spend big when they do.  However, Q Interactive reports that 78% of women who play FarmVille and other social media games earn their virtual currency via promotions.  Contradictory?
• Over one billion dollars are spent each year on virtual goodies for FarmVille and other social media games.
• Zynga CEO said about Facebook: "I did every horrible thing in the book too, just to get revenues right away. I mean we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this Zwinky toolbar which was like, I don't know, I downloaded it once and couldn't get rid of it."
• On November 8th, 2009, Zynga removed all virtual cash offers from FarmVillle.
• Aside from Facebook, FarmVille is also now playable on Microsoft's MSN Games (although it requires a Facebook account).
• John Deere sells approximately 5,000 tractors a year.  FarmVille sells roughly 500,000 tractors a day.  That's a huge number, despite the actual cost difference.
• Zynga's FarmVille was accused of mishandling donations by users for the Haiti relief campaign.  The accusations said that only a portion of the benefits actually reached Haiti, and the rest remained in the game.  The World Food Programme has since declared they received all moneys, and Zynga responded that they did pass along all donations and none remained in FarmVille.
• The Better Business Bureau has processed 436 complaints about Zynga (maker of FarmVille) in the last 36 months.

Sources:
IGN, Facebook, EPA, U.S. Census Bureau, HubPages, New York Times, Farmville, VA, Brandweek, Wikipedia, True/Slant, BBC