We are aggressive to each other because we can take the abuse. We know we are better than that, because we are so friendly to each other already.

如果 可以，我们将期待优秀的作品出现国内。

I still think the design of Farm Town (and FarmVille) is far closer to myFarm than Happy Farm. Everything from the openness of the game, the graphics, to the key action buttons “plow” and “harvest” are lifted from myFarm. ISG writes, “At first glance, [FarmTown] is a direct clone of myFarm. However, when given a closer look, it is not only prettier to look at but contains a great deal more depth too.” http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2009/05/27/farm-town-part-yoville-part-myfarm/
myFarm was on the leaderboard, so was certainly on the radar for Slashkey and others: http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2008/12/08/top-25-facebook-games-for-november-24-2008/

But myFarm never exploded like Happy Farm in China. The level of success enjoyed by Happy Farm in China should have been (and sounds like it was) impetus for Slashkey. Instead of “localizing” or “culturalizing” Happy Farm though, it appears that they copied and expanded upon myFarm.

In light of the Slashkey info, I’d co-award the prize for first “social farm” to the myFarm and Happy Farm teams, if it were up to me.

I’m not sure how much significance to assign cultural differences in social games. The early games in China are certainly very different, far more competitive (with stealing, etc.): http://www.chinasocialgames.com/?p=135 But then again, the recent RenRen Restaurant and Happy Restaurant are knockoffs of Restaurant City by Playfish, with minimal localization. Both are second only to farming in terms of popularity.

I think we’ve seen that top games in China don’t translate into mass-market hits on Facebook. I think this is mainly bc gameplay and distribution is not sophisticated enough to compete with Zynga et al, not due to cultural differences.

Could the top games on Facebook conquer China as is? I don’t know–there’s no good data on this point. I think Chinese networks and regulators would be loathe to allow it. And China is a comparatively small market in terms of monetization so the big developers don’t much care yet.

Season @ 5 Minutes thinks that the Farm Town was the original

BUT

apparently the guys from Slashkey were looking around for games successful on non-Facebook networks and came across Happy Farm

HOWEVER

They also thought that the game required quite a bit of “culturization” and made important changes.

SO

Inspired? Copy? You pick your term, but the first “social farm” seems to have originated in China.

I generally give a chance to the idea of independent reinvention, but this time I am quite convinced about the Copy-to-US. The farming nostalgia is fun – to balance with the mafia nostalgia (luckily? the Chinese government does not allow mafia-theme games).

Another key learning from the panel I moderated was that even with the same theme, there are important cultural differences. For instance:
- Why did Japanese users protest about the price of the watermelon in Sunshine Ranch?
- Why do US users dislike the “steal vegetable” teasing function?

Aside from metrics and general theme, success is about fine-tuning to cultures too.