Commercialization Inside Mafia Wars

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Zynga has discovered another way to make money.  They are now selling exclusive "in-game" advertising to a major television network and selling advertising opportunities to a movie production company.  Several days before The Mafia Wars Fan Page made a post encouraging us to watch "Mob Money", a special presentation on CNBC, advertisements were present right on our Mafia Wars home page.  About four days ago, we were asked to take a quiz about the upcoming movie "The Expendables".  For our efforts, we got 2 free Reward Points.  We are already exposed to ads on the frames of our Facebook and Mafia Wars accounts.  How much money do these guys need?  Apparently a lot!  Zynga already does everything they can to get us to spend money on Reward Points, now they want us to tolerate commercial ads in addition to their  pop-ups.  I don't think this is right but this is the direction Zynga seems to be going.  It may not be long until we start getting pop-ups from third parties paying Zynga to annoy us.  With all the tasks we have to perform, when does Zynga think we have time to watch T.V.?  Do they picture us going to 7-11 to buy a Game Card, Slurpee and some junk food, settling in to watch "Mob Money" while playing Farmville on our laptops?  I'm sorry CNBC, but I've seen this show before when it was called "Growing Up Gotti".  Actually this is a serious documentary about Organized Crime but the topic has been covered on many networks ad nauseam.  If I were to watch it, I would be looking for the part where one of the DeCavalcante Mobsters busts out his Riding Elephant to kill somebody.  Maybe the game developers will tune in and realize that very little of Mafia Wars can be compared to a real Mafia.

Speaking of advertisements, there is a way to block them from appearing on your Facebook pages.  I've discussed The Facebook Feed Filter in my article titled Feed Filter.  Facebook put a stop to some of the features but an older version can still be downloaded and it works.  There is also a FireFox Add-on called AdBlock Plus which can be downloaded HERE.  The Facebook Ads, including the ones that frame our Mafia Wars game, don't really bother me but as a FU to Zynga, I might start blocking them.  To learn more about this Add-on, click HERE to watch a video about it.  I like my advertisers so please don't use this when visiting my blog.