Hi, My Name Is Mike And I Was A FishVille Addict

Rumor has it that actress Salma Hayek never smoked before filming the movie Frida. But she had to learn how to play artist Frida Kahlo, and after the movie she had trouble quitting.
I know exactly how she feels. Because part of the fallout of all the Scamville posts I wrote last month is a lingering addiction to one of Zynga’s games, Fishville (yes, the game that Facebook shut down for three days for violations of their advertising rules).
A lot of the information in those Scamville posts came from good old fashioned research. I played the games to see what would happen. At first I thought they were ridiculous. I was growing acai trees and milking cows on Farmville, slaying the undead on Vampire Wars, and hitting mafia bosses with crowbars on Mob Wars. And of course I clicked on the offers and even paid cash a few times for currency.
It was all business of course. Until I noticed that I was going back to FishVille, even after the series was completed. I had 8 tanks going and hundreds of fish being grown from eggs to adults. Those were sold off and I bought more eggs and the cycle continued. Before long I was at level 34 – so high that there I had access to every kind of fish that you could buy. I’d racked up 808,647 experience points. I was proud of my tank’s pristine condition and cornucopia of decorations. Notice the bevy of happy, well-fed fish:

A big part of these games is the urge to go back to them multiple times per day. To feed the fish. Or harvest the corn. Wait too long and the fish dies, the corn wilts, and you lose currency and experience points. I was making sure to check back in regularly on