Social Gaming: Zynga & Farmville 2

Zynga

Zynga employs a 'Free-To-Play' business model that generates revenue through the sale of advertisment sponsorships or dircect payments by players through microtransactions. Zynga games operate by incorporating an 'energy replenishment' system that means the game will have certain limits, and so the player will have to replenish the 'energy' if they wish to play. This may be a case of either waiting for it to replenish (which can be a while) or the player  can buy in game currency through a direct credit card microtransaction. An example of this would be paying $5.00 for 21 credits, however this is not totally digital as it was originally. Zynga started to sell prepaid virtual currency cards in the US in more than 12,800 stores.
Zynga started to run Facebook and other sponsered advertisements on their website. They also became partners with Hasbro to create Zynga related products and brands.

Farmville 2

Farmville 2 is the sequel to the hit social Farmville. It was released in September 2012, 3 months after it was originally announced. There are adverts for Farmville 2 as sponsered posts by Facebook to help promote the game. Also, Farmville have staarted to use similar tactics to which they used to promote Farmville. Zynga have used petting zoos and gatherings to allow people who are 'neighbours' on the game to meet in reallife, while all the time publically advertiseing the game. This is a clever technique as it appeals to social gamers both young and old, young gamers get to play with the animals and discuss the game, and older gamers get to meet their online friends and meet new ones.