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% |
Wow. This is great. I’m going to point to it on my blog – excellent analysis.
I think if you start factoring in Experience, trees don’t look quite as good. But seeing the date tree square is very interesting.
I think looking at the yield of each crop is an interesting way to look at the data as well.
Great job.
Adam
[...] I was all set to write a post tonight on the economics of trees in Farmville… but then I caught Pablo’s post on “Treeconomics”. [...]
More Farmville Economics… « Psychohistory said this on August 25, 2009 at 2:05 am |
Nice analysis Pablo!
Abhi
Thank you very much Adam and Abhi!
I’m flattered
[...] See his number crunching here. [...]
Zynga Blog » Blog Archive » FarmVille Treeconomics, according to Pablo said this on August 25, 2009 at 9:12 am |
great analysis! thx!
NOW I’m flattered
Thank you very much for the comment Mark!
I lost interest after I realized this had nothing to do with how to succeed at online dating.
Chris, I would think it’s a perfect conversation piece!
It’s nice to see some other people running the numbers and looking at this game in both a short and long term financial sense. Now of course, there are a few other factors you have to look at. This article generally assumes having a near unlimited cashflow to begin with. Should your cashflow be limited early, them obviously you need to find a way to maximize your short term flow while consistently using most or all of your liquid resources to do it (making your money work for you).
In the mid-to-late game when you’re stockpiling money and can plant/grow/pet just about anything you want, you have a few other factors to look at. One of course is the level you’re at. Should you be sitting on level 35 with nothing else out there to get, then running the “Date Farm” is undoubtedly the right play, being careful not to overplant since you can expect the game will be expanding and 35 won’t always be the “cap”. Less than 35 and you start to factor in the XP as well. Where are you, how often can you plant, and what are your goals. If it’s to hit the level “cap” as fast as possible, then you ignore the dates and focus on the high XP yield crops, like Blueberries and Sunflowers. If you have the time and are looking for a hybrid yield, Tomatoes are best. You have to watch them closely, though, because while their hourly yield is the best prior to level 30 (I’m only at 28 so I don’t really know the top crops yet), their “realisitc yield”, or factoring in two hours on the end of maturization time to accomidate for real world things that prevent you from playing the game non-stop, is considerably less then Sunflowers and their XP yield is already only half of Blueberries.
On the whole, though, a very nice blog over the simple number crunching that gives a lot of people headaches in this game. Well done.
Great points Scott, thank you very much. XP would definitely be the next element to bring into the analysis.
I do remember playing a similar game in economics class which simulated running a company that sold “echo-pens”, a then pie-in-the-sky technology that could record what you write. These actually exist now, but that is beside the point. A dork like myself enjoyed adjusting my companies production, r&d, marketing, and pricing to try to out compete my fellow class-mates. I invariably won by picking the most extreme business model of high-quality or high-quantity. (ie the tiffany’s vs. walmart model)
I thought this was pretty cool, until they had a stock-picking competition in which I picked a winner (Intuit announced they were getting bought by Microsoft) The buy-out never happened, but I won the stock picking competition. From that point I was hooked.
I wonder if those simulations still make sense or professors will just start using games on Facebook to make their points
Would you believe, the sad this is I made a spreadsheet with all these figures about 3 weeks ago… nope not to share and be interesting, but just to beat my wife at farmville…
I can believe it perfectly. Your wife is a very talented social gamer!
Great piece. Very well researched and written
Thanks Márcia!
You’re missing a lot of trees including banana, pomegranate, passion fruit and grapefruit.
Thank you Nora. Unfortunately those trees can´t be bought, only sent as gifts, so we can´t do an investment analysis for them. But a gift is always good!
You just need to expand your analysis to involve game theory. Very cutting edge…
Maybe when they introduce farm vs. farm competitions… I’ll keep you posted.
Nice. Late to this thread (and pretty new to FarmVille), but the obvious next step is for their to be a yield based on XP, crop rotation, market prices for the harvest. From there, a futures market to hedge. Biofuel crop substution, etc. A veritable argabiz.
Thanks Chris. What about energy forward contracts to fuel the tractor and harvester?
Two extra points in this fantastic, but highly addictive strategy game:
!!! The game is a changing environment. Just like in real life. !!!
Today, date trees are out of the game. (I hope they will be back, because my current strategy is based on them, but it is.
!!! Time issues are crucial and more and more crucial in higher levels. !!!
Harvesting 18x18x16 date trees takes some time: 5 hours at least.
I miss the dates too
Time management becomes important. Although I like harvesting each tree only every 3 days it is a shame there is no tractor/harvester/seeder for them.
[...] help out not only hardcore players, but newbies as well. Another more detailed economic analysis of FarmVille’s Trees was calculated by Pablo [...]
Shaun Carter dot Com - Young entrepreneur, finance student, investor and blogger. said this on September 6, 2009 at 3:27 pm |
here are some of my thoughts on the whole trees being good for long term thing: of course these numbers may be wrong so if you find mistakes dont overly kill me for it.
tomatoes are 7.25 profit per hour
let us consider lime trees and date trees.
lime
5 days, 75$
15$ per day, 0.625 per hour.
to equal tomato plant, you will need:
7.25/0.625 = 11.6 trees per square
i just tried moving my trees onto a plot and it was a disaster!
seriously you cannot pick more than a few trees comfortably, you will lose too much time trying to harvest, there is no way in hell that you will pick 11 trees.
date
3 days, 69$
23$ per day, 0.96 per hour
7.25/0.96 = 7.6
now, maybe, MAYBE you can pick 8 dates per square.
my conclusion is this: if you think you can fill your farm with trees, you will need: 20*20*750 for lime, = 2,400,000, which is 35*20*20*173 (35 harvests on a 20×20 farm of tomatoes)
assuming you actually do this, and buy all the trees, that calculation is for 8 trees per square (8*400 = 3200 trees)
this is
15$ per day per tree, 0.625 per hour per tree, x8 = 5$ per patch of 8 trees, 2000 per hour per 400 squares on a farm, 48000 per day, but 240,000 at the end of a 5 day picking cycle IF you can pick 3200 trees.
now to make 48000 per day, we can also do this:
make 48000/400 squares = 120$ profit per square. per day which is 5$ per hour crops. any 5$ per hour crop therefore will beat 3200 lime trees. this means you can make 58$ profit off tomatoes and pick them every 11 hours and still make 5.2/hr
adding in that you get no exp for trees, i dont really see trees being of any use for cash or exp, EVEN IF you get 3200 date trees gifted,
3200 date trees = 73600$ per day
73600 / 400 = 184$ per square
184 / 24 = 7.67$/hr.
now, IF you can do this, dates will beat tomatoes (tomatoes are 7.25/hr)
downsides: no exp, and you’ll have to wait 3 days for 220,800 instead of getting 23,200 per 8 hours with tomatoes (which is 208,800 if you pick 9 sets of tomatoes in 72 hours) a loss of 12,000 per 3 days or 166.67 per hour.
this is not that well organised but i hope it is useful to at least some people.
also to add to my (any 5$ per hour crop) thing:
besides 2x tomatoes at 11 hours each you can plant:
carrots, coffee, sunflowers, 12/16/24 hours if you have the right levels but right now i am not high enough to use anything besides tomatoes and carrots
Thanks for the comment Eruvis. Your math is good, I liked the idea of calculating how many trees you need to match Tomatoes, the best performing crop. Indeed, if instead of putting 16 trees per square you put 8, it won’t work great.
Harvesting many trees into a square is difficult. I would only move identical trees together. They create a pattern that makes it easier to harvest. But you will need to be totally zoomed in.
You forgot to take into account that the fruit on trees never rot. Should you have any issues that prevent you from harvesting you don’t lose your entire investment in both plowing and seed stock.
I did like the point about picking 3200 trees. However, if you staggered the planting over a period of time, you’d be able to pick say, a third of the total per day, or something similar.
Harvesting trees as long as they are arranged by variety is not difficult but just time-consuming – which is what is making me get bored of these games unfortunately…
I am not sure who to ask. Why don’t the designers in Farmville make more items to be able to rotate directions? Like wheelbarrow, ponds, gazebos etc. They need to invent bricks or stone pathwys, ability to plant flowers around borders and earn money etc. Create more animals like a donkey, birds, geese, rooster, weather vein etc.