Farmville treeconomics: is this going too far?
The farmville date tree. Fill a square with 16 of them and you have a great investment.
Fred Wilson blogged recently about Zynga, the #1 social gaming company, looking for talent in Wall Street. He should know, he’s a Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures, one of the VC firms backing the company. I am sure that to many this might seem strange but it shouldn’t. You can put an MBA to good use just to play Farmville.
Adam Nash did just that. He took Farmville economics a step further in his last two posts and Lisa Chan at Zynga took good note of it. The next task in his list is figuring out the economics of trees. I thought I would give it a try.
Like in any financial model we’ll start with a couple of assumptions:
- Investment period and residual value: like Adam said, people will not be playing Farmville in 2020. Given that the “investment cycle” is daily I thought it was fair to assume that the tree is sold for its residual value after 90 days.
- Discount rate: I’m a huge supporter of using the NPV investment rule. The problem with this is, like I said, that we have to now find an adequate discount rate. To simplify and given that Adam’s initial analysis was not done on a bang per buck basis, I’ll just do a comparison of investments.
- Available investments: I still need to level up! Also other trees are available as gifts but cannot be purchased. I’ll base the analysis on the trees I have available to purchase.
First we’ll compare the trees among themselves to see which one has the highest daily revenue:
| Cost | Revenue/Harvest | Days to Harvest | Daily Revenue | Daily Rev/ Invested $ | Days to Payback | ||
| Date | $800.0 | $69.0 | 3 | $23.00 | 2.88% | 35 | |
| Lime | $750.0 | $75.0 | 5 | $15.00 | 2.00% | 50 | |
| Lemon | $475.0 | $41.0 | 3 | $13.67 | 2.88% | 35 | |
| Peach | $500.0 | $47.0 | 4 | $11.75 | 2.35% | 43 | |
| Fig | $350.0 | $33.0 | 3 | $11.00 | 3.14% | 32 | |
| Plum | $350.0 | $30.0 | 3 | $10.00 | 2.86% | 35 | |
| Orange | $425.0 | $40.0 | 4 | $10.00 | 2.35% | 43 | |
| Apple | $325.0 | $28.0 | 3 | $9.33 | 2.87% | 35 | |
| Cherry | $225.0 | $18.0 | 2 | $9.00 | 4.00% | 25 |
The date tree is the winner, but if we were to rank it on a daily revenue per dolar spent basis (bang per buck) it would look quite different:
| Cost | Revenue/Harvest | Days to Harvest | Daily Revenue | Daily Rev/ Invested $ | Days to Payback | ||
| Cherry | $225.0 | $18.0 | 2 | $9.00 | 4.00% | 25 | |
| Fig | $350.0 | $33.0 | 3 | $11.00 | 3.14% | 32 | |
| Lemon | $475.0 | $41.0 | 3 | $13.67 | 2.88% | 35 | |
| Date | $800.0 | $69.0 | 3 | $23.00 | 2.88% | 35 | |
| Apple | $325.0 | $28.0 | 3 | $9.33 | 2.87% | 35 | |
| Plum | $350.0 | $30.0 | 3 | $10.00 | 2.86% | 35 | |
| Orange | $425.0 | $40.0 | 4 | $10.00 | 2.35% | 43 | |
| Peach | $500.0 | $47.0 | 4 | $11.75 | 2.35% | 43 | |
| Lime | $750.0 | $75.0 | 5 | $15.00 | 2.00% | 50 |
As a side note, also the crops would look different on a bang per buck basis:
| Daily Investment | Daily Profit | Daily Rev/ Invested $ | |
| Super Berries | 300.0 | 900 | 300.0% |
| Watermelon | 36.3 | 51 | 140.0% |
| Artichokes | 21.3 | 30 | 140.0% |
| Wheat | 16.7 | 22 | 130.0% |
| Cotton | 30.0 | 39 | 130.0% |
| Pineapples | 55.0 | 66 | 120.0% |
| Yellow Bell | 45.0 | 54 | 120.0% |
| Squash | 27.5 | 33 | 120.0% |
| Eggplant | 20.0 | 24 | 120.0% |
| Soybean | 30.0 | 33 | 110.0% |
| Pepper | 85.0 | 77 | 90.6% |
| Rice | 120.0 | 72 | 60.0% |
| Pumpkin | 135.0 | 69 | 51.1% |
| Blueberries | 390.0 | 156 | 40.0% |
| Strawberries | 150.0 | 60 | 40.0% |
| Raspberry | 420.0 | 132 | 31.4% |
Back to our analysis. Let’s compare a 90 day investment in a square full of date trees with some crops. Believe it or not, 16 date trees can be squeezed in a square.
| Daily Profit | Total Profit | Initial investment | Residual Value | Profit | |
| Super Berries | $900.0 | $81,000.0 | $81,000.0 | ||
| Date tree square | $368.0 | $33,120.0 | $12,800 | $640.0 | $20,960.0 |
| Tomatoes | $174.0 | $15,660.0 | $15,660.0 | ||
| Raspberries | $132.0 | $11,880.0 | $11,880.0 |
Does a date tree square make sense? Sure. The catch? A square full of date trees costs 12,800 coins, you need 35 days just to pay the investment back. If you are looking to optimize your farm on a per square basis it’s perfect. Given that space and not coins is the key constrain in Farmville, it does make sense. Also, the longer the investment period, the better it will look.
Is this over-analyzing and going too far? Maybe, but in a blog about digital media, gaming, VC and randomness, this post fits great. If you need financial modeling to Excel at these games (pun intended), you do need to look in Wall Street to manage them.
Update: you can now see the analysis for Farmville animals here.
| Super Berries | 300.0 | 900 | 300.0% |
| Watermelon | 36.3 | 51 | 140.0% |
| Artichokes | 21.3 | 30 | 140.0% |
| Wheat | 16.7 | 22 | 130.0% |
| Cotton | 30.0 | 39 | 130.0% |
| Pinneaples | 55.0 | 66 | 120.0% |
| Yellow Bell | 45.0 | 54 | 120.0% |
| Squash | 27.5 | 33 | 120.0% |
| Eggplant | 20.0 | 24 | 120.0% |
| Soybean | 30.0 | 33 | 110.0% |
| Pepper | 85.0 | 77 | 90.6% |
| Rice | 120.0 | 72 | 60.0% |
| Pumpkin | 135.0 | 69 | 51.1% |
| Blueberries | 390.0 | 156 | 40.0% |
| Strawberries | 150.0 | 60 | 40.0% |
| Raspberry | 420.0 | 132 | 31.4% |
Could I ask question, what happen to my farmville I encountered problems like this” out of sync” what I must to do. I’am a fanatic in farmville help me…send my reply on sel722@gmail.com
I recently started using the Farmville application on Facebook and was just beginning to figure things out. unfortunately I didnt harvest my crops for two days and by the time i logged in all my crops had dried up
.I am getting addicted to the game now and would gobble up any information on it. Thanks for this blog. Very good analysis.
Question. Does your daily investment include the 15 coin cost of plowing per harvest? Thanks!!
[...] Via: Pablo Paniagua blog [...]
Trucos para Farmville: los 5 Mejores Arboles said this on October 1, 2009 at 4:09 pm |
I did my own analysis of profit per hour for crops (I’m a former CPA-now on disability). It was a simple process and has made a big difference in how I plant my crops and arrange planting/harvesting around my other daily plans. I love that I play this game with my 13 year old daughter (I just turned 50), her friends, my friends . . . and now my husband wants me to help him set up his farm. How amazing is it to find a game that appeals to such a wide range of users and a computer application that is actually bringing a family TOGETHER! Many thanks to the developers of FarmVille. Just keep more choices coming . . . I wish there was a greater variety of animals to purchase & I hope the program keeps growing with the farmers. How about pets??
I wish you could give more FV points when you get to the higher levels. It takes so long in between the levels , after 20. I don`t want to bring out the credit card out for a game. Thanks’
I thought I was over the top with my farming, but you have me beat! Cool blog… Do you happen to know how to get fertilizer? There’s a new ribbon for fertilizing your neighbor’s farm, but I don’t know where to get fertilizer???
I recently found out a great way to get XP fast with a lot of effort but not a lot of coins. If you delete a few plots, about 30, it will be sufficient for you to do this. Buy hay bales for 100 coins each and place them in the space that you have reserved for it. With this new function of Farmville where you can buy hay bales without going to the market every time works wonders. Each hay bale you will purchase is worth 5XP and if you will sell it again after you run out of space, you will receive 5coins for it. This means if you want 1000XP, it will cost you (1000 devide by 5 = 200 hay bales, which will cost you 100coins each and you will sell them for 5 coins, which gives you 95 coins in total. So 95coins X 200 hay bales) 19000 coins. This will get you through the levels in no time with a bit of effort.
Recently purchased a solar powered plower, but am wondering why I did this. You can plow 4 at a time anyway. This concerns me a little as I wonder if FarmVille will soon be charging for gas too!
I would love to know when we can purchase the land (coming soon)
How can you earn extra $ to increase your land size? Seems to take ages to earn one extra $
why is it that not everyone can have those flower shed. I love to have it. My niece has it but not me. huhuhu Please let everyone have those flower shed. thanks:)
Congrats to FARMVILLE!!! I hope the record number of users is not representative of the unemployment rate.
Why can we only have one chicken coop but unlimited dairy barns? Collecting eggs one by one is a pain. We should be able to buy more than one
[...] And don’t get me wrong…I’ve loved having you in my life. Learning to plant pumpkins before bed so they’re ready to harvest when I wake up, that was a breakthrough. Figuring out the ribbon system was a moment I will always cherish, and it only strengthened our relationship. I even applied some basic economic principles to the game to maximize my productivity, and found inspiration from others who, awesomely, took it much farther. [...]
Dear FarmVille, We Need To Talk | Video Games said this on December 21, 2009 at 7:59 pm |
Check out this great Secrets of Farmville Guide pdf. Has some useful info, just thought I would share. 53 pages long.
http://bit.ly/71iNyR
where do we find the answers to these questions..would love to learn how to get to the next level faster and get farmville coins and most of all..stop the issues like coming back and finding myself back a level..instead of up..I got to 25 with hard work..came back and now I am back to 24..grrrr how do we stop that and still earn money?? help
Админ, а много блог отнимает времени у тебя?
check out the iPhone / iPod touch app guide for leveling up & getting all ribbons. No cheats or other programs needed!
search for “ORSON’S FARM” on iTunes.
Created by Farmville players, for Farmville players!
Хороший блог. Занёс в букмарки