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Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Michele Willson & Tama Lea...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Part of a larger .. ARC Li...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Outline  Value of Data  ...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Every mouse click aggregat...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Frem...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J We’ve become more valuable...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Social Game defined: The t...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Frem...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Frem...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Frem...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Microtransaction revenue A...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Mark Pincus (CEO) on Zynga...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Frem...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J The contract You own your ...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Accessing Farmville on Fac...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Questionable practices 04....
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Late 2009, Arrington (Tech...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Oct 2010 – class-action la...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Facebook user backlash 04....
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Frem...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Frem...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Social media contradiction...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Dec 2011 – Zynga goes publ...
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Premature? 04.07.2013ANZCA...
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FarmVillains? Social Games, Data Mining and the Social Media Contradiction

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The increasingly complex intermingling of online social interactions and data mining that take place through social media, web search and online games invites further discussion and examination. Both activities – the increasing necessity of engaging in social interaction through online commercial providers such as Facebook alongside the ability of providers to extract, aggregate and commercialise the outcomes of such activities as a result of the data trail that is produced – have attracted considerable attention amongst the media and academic commentators alike. The implicit contract that the public who use these services necessarily engage requires them to trade information about their friends, their likes, their desires and their consumption habits in return for their participation in the service. The recent release of Facebook’s Graph Search functionality makes this trade off quite explicit, demonstrating how multifaceted data mining of social interaction creates complex and useful information.
The dramatic rise in the creation and exploitation of what’s now called big data leads to a range of ethical questions, not least of all being the transparency of data mining operations (boyd & Crawford, 2012). While much of the attention has been focussed on social networking services such as Facebook, it is equally important to recognise the more widespread adoption of large-scale data mining practices in a number of realms, including social games such as the well-known Farmville and its sequels, created by Zynga. In examining data mining in social games, the question must be asked as to whether users are making a fair exchange – trading a full record of their every choice, click and action for mostly free gameplay – or is this choice so occluded that users are insufficiently aware of the exchange they have legally agree to, usually via impenetrably dense Terms of Use? Moreover, is this example indicative of a broader social media contradiction which sees users largely focused on the social side, which is usually about ephemeral communication and sharing, while the online service providers tend to focus on the media side, which entails lasting, durable and minable information and data. This paper will critically explore the realm of social games utilising Zynga as a central example, with a view to examine the practices, politics and ethics of data mining and the inherent social media contradiction. In determining whether this contradiction is accidental or purposeful, this paper will ask, in effect, whether Zynga and the big data miners behind social games are entrepreneurial heroes or FarmVillains?

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FarmVillains? Social Games, Data Mining and the Social Media Contradiction

  1. 1. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Michele Willson & Tama Leaver FarmVillains? Games, Data Mining and the Social Media Contradiction. 04.07.2013
  2. 2. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Part of a larger .. ARC Linkage (LP11200026 ): The New Entrepreneurial Communities: an applied ethnographic study into social gaming on the Internet 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia.
  3. 3. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Outline  Value of Data  Zynga and its Social Games  The Contract  Questionable Practices: Zynga’s relationship to (personal) data  Social Media Contradiction 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia.
  4. 4. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Every mouse click aggregates onto a wider body of data that is stored indefinitely, to be queried and analyzed to ends that are boundless at most, and vague at the very least. (Chow-White, P., Chee, F., & Smith, R. 2011, p.18) 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia.
  5. 5. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/
  6. 6. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J We’ve become more valuable to the Internet and its scanbots as aggregate data inputs than we ever were as consumers of banner ads. (McKelvey, Tiessen & Simcoe, 2013) 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia.
  7. 7. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Social Game defined: The term ‘social game’ is contested; the two main uses being either a game involving multiple players interacting socially or, more recently, games specifically played within online social networking platforms (emphasis added, Jacobs & Sihvonen, 2011) 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia.
  8. 8. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia.
  9. 9. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia.
  10. 10. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia.
  11. 11. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Microtransaction revenue Advertising revenue Data gathered about player mechanics, frustrations, desires etc Access to FB users and their social networks 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia.
  12. 12. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Mark Pincus (CEO) on Zynga.com We think we’ve built the best hosting for social games and deep analytics. You can make your network available to companies through APIs, and we are in the early stages of doing that. (http://allthingsd.com/20120530/mark-pincus-at-d10/) 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia.
  13. 13. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia.
  14. 14. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J The contract You own your User Content. You hereby grant Zynga and its Affiliates a perpetual and irrevocable (other than as provided below), worldwide, fully paid-up and royalty free, non-exclusive, unlimited license, … [to use] in any way now known or in the future discovered, your User Content ..[you]waive any moral rights you may have in any User Content. The license …ends when you delete your User Content or you close your Account unless your User Content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it. However, you understand and accept that removed content may persist in back-up copies for a reasonable period of time. (http://company.zynga.com/legal/terms-of-service) 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia.
  15. 15. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Accessing Farmville on Facebook … 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia. New users are neither required to read (or click something to say they have read) either Zynga’s Terms of Service or Privacy Policy in order to access the game.
  16. 16. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Questionable practices 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia.
  17. 17. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Late 2009, Arrington (TechCrunch) article series 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia.
  18. 18. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Oct 2010 – class-action lawsuit Zynga is sued over a Facebook privacy scandal. Allegation: Zynga collected and shared the data of 218 million Facebook user IDs with advertisers and data brokers. …violated federal law and its contract with Facebook by sharing user data with third parties. 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia.
  19. 19. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Facebook user backlash 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia.
  20. 20. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia.
  21. 21. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia. FarmVille had a 26 % drop, from about 83 million in March 2010 to 61 million monthly users, July 2010
  22. 22. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Social media contradiction The front-facing experience of Zynga’s games encourages players to focus on the social side: the play, the competition, and social interaction. Yet, for Zynga these elements are secondary to the data collection, aggregation, analytics and monetization of player activity. 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia.
  23. 23. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Dec 2011 – Zynga goes public, with very disappointing results. Oct 2012 –drastic cost-cutting: mass firings, game closures Nov 2012 – Facebook announces Zynga will no longer enjoy a privileged position as of March 31st 2013 March 2013 – CityVille 2 closed-lack of players June 2013 – cuts 18% jobs, closes offices 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia.
  24. 24. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Premature? 04.07.2013ANZCA 2013, Fremantle, Western Australia. Image Source: http://www.stayawake.tv/ViewBlog/How-Zynga-has-killed-Facebook-games-75

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