Facebook Games: Mafia Wars, Pirates, etc.

I recently joined Facebook and encountered some games which seem to be wildly popular amongst the denizens of the Facebook realm. Mafia Wars and Pirates are two games created by a company called Zynga. The terms of service are rather long, and intimidating for someone like myself who can be concerned with intellectual property rights. However, in a world where we click away our rights every day just to "make the damn thing work", neither game seems to be short on players.

These games are without a doubt Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMORPGs), but can we consider these games virtual realities? It seems most of the action takes place within the user's imagination, rather than in rich 3D virtual environments. But does a virtual reality require fancy graphics?

Would you consider the old MUDs (Multi User Dungeons) virtual realities? They too were certainly massively multiplayer online roleplaying games, but all of the action happened via text describing the scenes, events, and interactions.

These Facebook games, like Mafia Wars, are menu driven games which contain some static graphical content to enhance the text which drives the game. So, from that point of view, it would seem that they are slightly enhanced versions of the MUDs of my youth. However, one thing that the MUDs have over these Facebook RPGs is that the MUDs had a virtual environment which could be explored. For example, you could "GO NORTH" and receive text describing a new area of the virtual world. You could then "GO SOUTH" and return to the area you started in.

Conversely, it seems, at least from my limited experience with Mafia Wars and Pirates, that there is no "map" of their world. The virtual world of Mafia Wars and Pirates is devoid of static locations. The entire game world is made up of character development (including the acquisition of money and loot) and events (i.e. missions and mile-stones).

In a world where too many people have been raised on a diet of "gimme more" and "gimme it quick", these games may owe their seemingly addictive nature to a quick action fix and fast rewards of money and status. I'll give them some more time before passing final judgement on them - but right now, I'm having a hard time justifying how such a game could keep me from the much more wild adventures of mining in Eve-Online. :p