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7-Eleven to Sell 'Farmville' Slurpees, Dishes Out Worst Brain Freeze Ever

by Warren Riddle on May 25, 2010 at 07:25 AM

Farmville slurpee and ice cream
Zynga, the social gaming firm and leading procrastination enabler, reportedly plans to provide the denizens of 'FarmVille' and the goodfellas of 'Mafia Wars' with tangible, real-world enticements. The approximately 75 million Farmville laborers already spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a variety of nonexistent virtual goods, a sum that some analysts predict will surpass $2 billion by 2012.

Zynga certainly doesn't appear complacent with that massive Facebook success, though, as it continues to expand its brand, particularly through the development of new games like 'PioneerVille' and 'Treasure Isle.' According to the Wall Street Journal, the company's most recent diversification project involves a physical foray into convenience stores. A new venture with 7-Eleven now enables Zynga gamers to purchase in-store products like candy, slurpees and ice cream in order to earn redeemable codes for various in-game goods, like Farmville cash.

Finding fault with Zynga's burgeoning business model proves almost impossible, as social gaming steadily attracts new players while console sales continue to nosedive. The success of physically diversified social networking sites like Foursquare, and its incentive-laden Starbucks service, demonstrates that Zynga could be tapping into a rapidly expanding market. Perhaps best of all, as parents watch their bank accounts dwindle and politicians watch their job prospects diminish, folks will actually be able to gain something, thanks to this Zynga social-slurpee experiment -- even if it is just an expanding waistline. [From: The Wall Street Journal]

Tags: 7-Eleven, 7eleven, facebook, FarmVille, farmville slurpee, FarmvilleFreak, FarmvilleSlurpee, MafiaWars, shopping, slurpee, socialnetworking, top, TreasureIsle, Zynga

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