Cow Clicker

July 22, 2010 10:38 PM

Cow Clicker is a Facebook game about Facebook games. It's partly a satire, and partly a playable theory of today's social games, and partly an earnest example of that genre.

You get a cow. You can click on it. In six hours, you can click it again. Clicking earns you clicks. You can buy custom "premium" cows through micropayments (the Cow Clicker currency is called "mooney"), and you can buy your way out of the time delay by spending it. You can publish feed stories about clicking your cow, and you can click friends' cow clicks in their feed stories. Cow Clicker is Facebook games distilled to their essence.

posted by Joe Beese (22 comments total)

I am sooooo tempted to make an iPhone version of this...
posted by DreamerFi at 11:04 PM on July 22, 2010

Neven Morgan wrote a blogpost about the ethics of Cow Clicker. Excerpt:

So with Cow Clicker, while I understand that its primary goal is not to satirize, I am uneasy with the fact that Ian is wasting people's actual time and money. I don't think Kennedy's KKK farce resulted in anyone sincerely joining the clan, and as for Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal - a satirical classic inviting the poor people of Ireland to sell their children as food - well, history does not record that anyone actually attempted this. But real, unsuspecting people do click those cows. And as for it being a fair bit of fun for those cow-clickers, the whole reason I'm opposed to these timesucks is that they are designed to feed on the addictive aspects of our poor li'l brains, fending off whatever defense mechanisms should tell us not to do this stupid thing over and over. I can't really blame anyone for getting into it.

It's not patently obvious that addictive social games such as Farmville and Cow Clicker are indeed bad; I may think so, but reasonable people may disagree. I'd just like to warn anyone who dislikes such things that satirizing them by essentially participating in them - worse, dragging more people into them! - is, for my money, the wrong sort of satire.

[via pb]
posted by Kattullus at 11:38 PM on July 22, 2010 [2 favorites]

Cow Clicker looks like it is for people who aren't very good at Progress Wars.
posted by milkrate at 11:40 PM on July 22, 2010 [4 favorites]

Great!! A Facebook game I can play ironically!
posted by redsparkler at 12:00 AM on July 23, 2010 [6 favorites]

If I had known in 1994 that the intewebs would have resulted in this I would have probably opted out of the whole damn mess and stayed in the library.
posted by quadog at 12:12 AM on July 23, 2010 [4 favorites]

I played Mafia Wars for a while but you can only play a game with no animation, story, sound, or gameplay for so long before it gets boring.
I am worried that my Farmville-addicted aunt is going to start spamming me with Cow Clicker invites now though.
posted by minifigs at 1:09 AM on July 23, 2010

I would like to make an astute observation in this thread and get some favorites for it.
posted by srboisvert at 4:36 AM on July 23, 2010 [18 favorites]

So with Cow Clicker, while I understand that its primary goal is not to satirize...

Really? Let me just review the game a second:

You get a cow. You can click on it. In six hours, you can click it again. Clicking earns you clicks.

If that's not intended as satire, the long-awaited End of Facebook is already upon us.
posted by DU at 4:41 AM on July 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

so this is a game by douchebags for morons?
posted by zenwerewolf at 5:38 AM on July 23, 2010

Man, at least the monkey or rat got some food or cocaine when it pressed the damn bar for its sporadic rewards.
posted by jadepearl at 5:42 AM on July 23, 2010 [5 favorites]

A new post appears. You can comment on it. In a little while, a new post appears, and you can comment on it. Commenting earns you comments. The currency is called "favorites".
posted by Wolfdog at 6:06 AM on July 23, 2010 [11 favorites]

(But it's not just a currency. It's also bookmarks. But you lose the game if you call it that.)
posted by Wolfdog at 6:06 AM on July 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

It would be a better joke if it didn't want me to spend my real money. On Facebook, this could go from "ironic joke game about the dumb Facebook games" to this guy's sole income. People need to have a bling cow!
posted by bDiddy at 6:57 AM on July 23, 2010

I want to click on my cow some more. Everyone send me more mooney so i can do so.
posted by Lord_Pall at 7:05 AM on July 23, 2010

jadepearl: "Man, at least the monkey or rat got some food or cocaine when it pressed the damn bar for its sporadic rewards."

You just gave me an idea for a crossover social-network/alternate reality game... Level up and get a dose of cocaine in the mail ... It has a few kinks to work out, but I think it has potential. Then the media can really talk about an addictive online game.
posted by symbioid at 7:55 AM on July 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

CURSES! I have not played FarmvilleMafiaSpyGame or any other such FB wastes-of-time...but I'll be damned, I signed up for Cow Clicker. They're just so dang cute!

/sucker for cute cows
posted by davidmsc at 9:00 AM on July 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

I tried to sign up for it but for some reason the link in the story isn't working. I NEED MY COWS :'(
posted by NoraReed at 9:46 AM on July 23, 2010

I got it to work. Now I just need to figure out how to invite all of the friends who keep sending me invites to Sorority Life...
posted by NoraReed at 10:18 AM on July 23, 2010

But real, unsuspecting people do click those cows.

O, the humanity!
posted by jeoc at 1:07 PM on July 23, 2010

Me too, davidmsc. Me too...
posted by zorrine at 1:48 PM on July 23, 2010

Bart anticipated all this.
posted by srboisvert at 3:01 PM on July 23, 2010

Slightly more cheeky than the interactive fiction title "Pick Up The Phone Booth And Die".
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:19 PM on July 23, 2010 [1 favorite]