So the last couple of weeks I have been testing and playing some of the face book applications that I always get invites for that my friends seem to be playing a lot of. As I am always spammed invites I finally had some time to check out games like YoVille, FarmVille, and Island Paradise. 

YoVille is a highly social interaction game, essentially you customize an avatar and basically you “hang” out online with your friends. The pull for this game is by hanging out with your friends (or their avatar if they aren’t online) you earn points and experience to unlock things that you can customize your in-game house with. Essentially this is “Pimp my House” plus a generic version of The Sims Online. 

With FarmVille you run your own farm and customize fully with buildings, houses, accessories, animals, crops, and trees. Crops have a different value and time frame for harvesting on them, but you better be quick so they don’t wither and die. A lot of my friends are on this game and I have become just as addicted as them. 

Island Paradise is a lot like FarmVille, except now you are stranded on a deserted island and the pace is a bit slower to earn money and expand. Also, another major diffence with this game is you can steal crops (limited to three a day) from your friends when you visit their islands. Can anyone say game on?

Alright, so now that I have gone over a couple of these applications and talked about their social pull, let’s chat about something that really gets me pissed off. I was playing FarmVille the other day and clicked on the button that said add more coins/farm bucks. From there I saw that you can earn money for the game to buy stuff by either purchasing it with real money or participating in some marketing programs/surveys.

Yes, I was one of those idiots that thought taking a “How Smart are You” IQ test to get game points really meant simply taking a test and getting my in game money.

So, I take this quiz and it asks me for my phone number to send my results to and I provide it. I did notice that I had to click a terms and conditions box but there was nothing on the main page saying that I was going to be charged $9.99 a month for their service which was to include “interesting facts” texted to you weekly. It wasn’t until I started doing another survey that actually SAID that I was going to be charged monthly underneath the terms and conditions box that I double checked the link to the one before and found indeed I was going to be charged monthly.

Ok, yes I am stupid for falling for it, so I thought I would issue a warning for all of you out there that might be tempted to fall for this stuff to get that pink scare crow.  While I can’t blame anyone but myself, I can’t help but be upset that companies try to take advantage of you like this and they don’t clearly write it out when you may be charged for something. It really makes me want to boycott the apps themselves, but since I am as addicted as my friends let’s just get the word out and warn everyone: If you think it’s free, it probably ISN’T! Spread the word peeps!