“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 the sound of guitar music. Animals do what they are told, there is no disease, 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, a pharmacist 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. I like 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(yǎng)著一些雞和奶牛。我喜歡飼養(yǎng)動物。它能撫慰人心。”

Curran's fledgling herd, however, is nothing more than a collection of computer-generated cartoons. FarmVille is an online computer game built into the social networking site Facebook and is described by its players as "addictive". Launched last June by Zynga Game Network, FarmVille now has more players than Twitter's entire user base--or more than the population of the UK. The players are largely women over the age of 35.
但是，柯倫剛剛飼養(yǎng)起來的動物只不過是一群電腦生成的卡通形象而已。FarmVille是一款內置于社交網站“臉譜”的網上電腦游戲，被玩家們形容為“讓人上癮”。

FarmVille cunningly unites the worlds of social networking and gaming. Players are given a patch of ground with six fields, "cash", a few seeds and a plough and have to build up wealth, skills and neighbours to create bigger, better, richer farms.
FarmVille巧妙地將社交網絡和游戲世界結合在一起。玩家獲得一片有六塊田的土地、“現(xiàn)金”、幾粒種子和一把犁杖，必須積累財富、技能，并網絡鄰居，來建設更大、更好、更富有的農場。

Inviting your online friends to play means you earn more and get free 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.
如果邀請網友加入游戲，就可以賺到更多的錢并獲取免費禮品；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-world money to advance in the game, but her friends do. One buys extra virtual currency at the exchange rate of $240 (£145) in FarmVille for $40 (£24) in the real world.
“真是讓人欲罷不能，”柯倫說。她還沒有為了游戲晉級花過錢，但她的朋友卻花過。用現(xiàn)實世界的40美元（折合24英鎊）可以購買FarmVille中240美元（折合145英鎊）的虛擬貨幣。

"I'd expanded on FarmVille as much as I could, but I just wanted a pond and some hedges," says the woman, who is too embarrassed to be named. "I didn't tell my husband I'd paid real money because he'd think I'm mad. But then he did keep me waiting in the car outside our house while 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，”這位羞于透露姓名的婦女說。“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里等著，而自己卻在收獲樹莓。”

Brian Dudley, chief executive at Broadway Lodge, an addiction treatment centre, warns that this sort of obsessive play can lead to an addiction 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，這種令人著魔的游戲會導致上癮，其嚴重程度與賭博無異。

"Games like this draw people into a fantasy world that's separate from real life where there are no issues, and where things are simple and controllable," he says.
他說：“這種游戲把人吸引到一個與現(xiàn)實生活分離的幻想世界，那里不存在爭端，一切都簡單和可以操控。”

Indeed, FarmVille addicts have already faced their first big scandal. On the site, players can take advantage of special offers on ads that promise more virtual cash and points for taking free trials or entering competitions.
的確，F(xiàn)armVille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(xiàn)金和點數(shù)。

Last month, however, TechCrunch, a US website, revealed the scams behind these freebies: the product come-ons often click through to trial services or quizzes that ask for credit card details or mobile phone numbers. Small print warns that their accounts will be debited for months to come.
但是上個月，美國一家網站TechCrunch揭露了這些免費品背后的騙局：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，賬款會在幾個月后記入其帳戶的借方。

"I clicked on an ad that offered a free IQ test in exchange for points in the game, took the test and punched in my mobile number so they could text me the result," says one victim, Momar Jahihti. "When I checked my statement, they were surreptitiously billing me $30 [£18] per month."
“我點擊了一則提供免費智商測試的廣告，來換取游戲點數(shù)。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短信發(fā)給我，”一名受害者莫馬爾·杰希提說。“當我查看我的結算單時，發(fā)現(xiàn)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 action against Zynga and Facebook. "Most, if not all, of the online advertisements presented through Zynga are scams," the lawsuit alleges. "The advertisements are highly misleading and often result in users subscribing to goods or services that they do not want or need."
兩周前，一群美國玩家發(fā)起對Zynga和“臉譜”網的集體訴訟。“通過Zynga發(fā)布的大多數(shù)——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并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, in turn 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”網游戲中一天可賺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 a proper farm: in FarmVille, wheat grows in two days--in real life, it takes months. But play continues nevertheless.
如果所有這些還不夠說明問題，那么還可以說，F(xiàn)armVille的運作程式并不像一個真正的農場：在FarmVille，小麥生長期為兩天——而在現(xiàn)實生活中，則需要數(shù)月。盡管如此，游戲還在繼續(xù)。