玩家注意：「種菜」小心栽廣告陷阱(圖)

本文選自《北外網院》的博客，點擊查看博客原文

「種菜」小心栽進廣告陷阱

　　Here"s an idyllic scene: a hamlet where the sun always shines,crops always grow and your friends drop by to sweep your yard to thesound of guitar music. Animals do what they are told, there is nodisease, and lendin" folks a helpin" hand makes you richer and wiser。

　　這是一個田園詩般的景象：小村莊里，陽光永遠普照，莊稼不斷生長，朋友造訪，伴著吉他樂曲打掃你家院子。動物們馴順聽話，沒有疾病侵擾，助人為樂讓你越來越富有，越來越聰明。

　　"It reminds me of my childhood," says one player, Lia Curran, 37, apharmacist from London. "Right now I"m growing wheat and poinsettia,I"ve got a small orchard, and I"m rearing some chickens and some cows. Ilike having the animals. It"s soothing."

　　「它讓我想起了童年時代，」37歲的玩家莉婭·柯倫說。她是倫敦的一名藥劑師。「我正在種植小麥和一品紅，我有一個小果園，還養著一些雞和奶牛。我喜歡飼養動物。它能撫慰人心。」

　　Curran"s fledgling herd, however, is nothing more than a collectionof computer-generated cartoons. FarmVille is an online computer gamebuilt into the social networking site Facebook and is described by itsplayers as "addictive". Launched last June by Zynga Game Network,FarmVille now has more players than Twitter"s entire user base--or morethan the population of the UK. The players are largely women over theage of 35.

　　但是，柯倫剛剛飼養起來的動物只不過是一群電腦生成的卡通形象而已。FarmVille是一款內置於社交網站「臉譜」的網上電腦遊戲，被玩家們形容為「讓人上癮」。

　　FarmVille cunningly unites the worlds of social networking andgaming. Players are given a patch of ground with six fields, "cash", afew seeds and a plough and have to build up wealth, skills andneighbours to create bigger, better, richer farms。

　　FarmVille巧妙地將社交網路和遊戲世界結合在一起。玩家獲得一片有六塊田的土地、「現金」、幾粒種子和一把犁杖，必須積累財富、技能，並網路鄰居，來建設更大、更好、更富有的農場。

　　Inviting your online friends to play means you earn more and getfree gifts; you rise rapidly through the first levels but, once hooked,have to work harder and harder with no final level or goal in sight。

　　如果邀請網友加入遊戲，就可以賺到更多的錢並獲取免費禮品；在初級階段你會進步得很快，然而一旦著了迷，就必須加倍努力，要達到最高層級或終極目標卻遙遙無期。

　　"It"s very moreish," says Curran. She hasn"t yet paid real-worldmoney to advance in the game, but her friends do. One buys extra virtualcurrency at the exchange rate of $240 (￡145) in FarmVille for $40 (￡24)in the real world。

　　「真是讓人慾罷不能，」柯倫說。她還沒有為了遊戲晉級花過錢，但她的朋友卻花過。用現實世界的40美元(摺合24英鎊)可以購買FarmVille中 240美元(摺合145英鎊)的虛擬貨幣。

　　"I"d expanded on FarmVille as much as I could, but I just wanted apond and some hedges," says the woman, who is too embarrassed to benamed. "I didn"t tell my husband I"d paid real money because he"d thinkI"m mad. But then he did keep me waiting in the car outside our housewhile he harvested his raspberries."

　　「我極力在FarmVille上擴大我的農場，但我就是想要一個池塘和一些樹籬，」這位羞於透露姓名的婦女說。「我沒有告訴我丈夫我支付了真錢，因為他會以為我瘋了。但當時他讓我在屋外的車裡等著，而自己卻在收穫樹莓。」

　　Brian Dudley, chief executive at Broadway Lodge, an addictiontreatment centre, warns that this sort of obsessive play can lead to anaddiction as severe as gambling。

　　百老匯洛奇上癮治療中心總裁賴恩·達德利警告說，這種令人著魔的遊戲會導致上癮，其嚴重程度與賭博無異。

　　"Games like this draw people into a fantasy world that"s separatefrom real life where there are no issues, and where things are simpleand controllable," he says。

　　他說：「這種遊戲把人吸引到一個與現實生活分離的幻想世界，那裡不存在爭端，一切都簡單和可以操控。」

　　Indeed, FarmVille addicts have already faced their first bigscandal. On the site, players can take advantage of special offers onads that promise more virtual cash and points for taking free trials orentering competitions。

　　的確，FarmVille成癮者已經遭遇首樁重大丑聞。該網站在廣告中提供了讓玩家得益的特別贈品，它給出的承諾是，玩家只要免費試用或參與競賽，就可以獲得更多的虛擬現金和點數。

　　Last month, however, TechCrunch, a US website, revealed the scamsbehind these freebies: the product come-ons often click through to trialservices or quizzes that ask for credit card details or mobile phonenumbers. Small print warns that their accounts will be debited formonths to come。

　　但是上個月，美國一家網站TechCrunch揭露了這些免費品背後的騙局：點擊充滿誘惑力的產品廣告，常常鏈接到需要詢問信用卡詳情或手機號碼的試用服務或小測試。小號字附加條款則警告，賬款會在幾個月後記入其帳戶的借方。

　　"I clicked on an ad that offered a free IQ test in exchange forpoints in the game, took the test and punched in my mobile number sothey could text me the result," says one victim, Momar Jahihti. "When Ichecked my statement, they were surreptitiously billing me $30 [￡18] permonth."

　　「我點擊了一則提供免費智商測試的廣告，來換取遊戲點數。我完成了測試，輸入了我的手機號碼，以便他們可以將結果用簡訊發給我，」一名受害者莫馬爾·傑希提說。「當我查看我的結算單時，發現他們居然偷偷摸摸地給我開了每月30美元(18英鎊)的賬單。」

　　Two weeks ago, a group of US players launched a class actionagainst Zynga and Facebook. "Most, if not all, of the onlineadvertisements presented through Zynga are scams," the lawsuit alleges."The advertisements are highly misleading and often result in userssubscribing to goods or services that they do not want or need."

　　兩周前，一群美國玩家發起對Zynga和「臉譜」網的集體訴訟。「通過Zynga發布的大多數——甚至是全部的——網上廣告都是騙局，」該訴訟稱。「這些廣告誤導性很強，往往會使用戶訂購他們並不想要或不需要的商品和服務。」

　　According to Nick O"Neill from the social media site All Facebook,Zynga is making $500,000 (￡304,000) a day from its Facebook games, inturn spending some $50m (￡30m) a year on Facebook ads。

　　據社交媒體網站All Facebook的尼克·奧尼爾稱，Zynga從其「臉譜」網遊戲中一天可賺50萬美元(30.4萬英鎊)，繼而每年投入約5000萬美元(3000萬英鎊)用作「臉譜」網上的廣告費。

　　If all that weren"t enough, FarmVille doesn"t even function like aproper farm: in FarmVille, wheat grows in two days--in real life, ittakes months. But play continues nevertheless。

　　如果所有這些還不夠說明問題，那麼還可以說，FarmVille的運作程式並不像一個真正的農場：在FarmVille，小麥生長期為兩天——而在現實生活中，則需要數月。儘管如此，遊戲還在繼續。