SALON

Wednesday, May 18, 2011 9:19 PM UTC

Understanding GagaVille: A primer

Find out what happen when you combine the popular Facebook game FarmVille with unicorns, crystals and Lady Gaga

By

Topics: Lady Gaga, Facebook, Gaming, Music, Television,

Understanding GagaVille: A primerGagaVille: the most confusing place on Earth.

 In one of the odder marketing strategies we’ve seen in a while, Lady Gaga is leaking tracks from her new album “Born This Way” through a farming social networking game on Facebook. In all fairness FarmVille is the most popular application on Mark Zuckerberg’s site, with over 10 percent of users participating in the virtual crop-growing exercise. FarmVille is also available as an iPhone application, in case you want the experience of touching dirt from the comfort of your own smartphone.

Farmville basically works like an old-style Sims game: plow the land, get some coins for your avatar (or vice versa), trade them in for little gifts to make your pretend person happier, and forget what a soul-sucking existence you have while staring at a tiny screen. Oh! But in FarmVille you get to sync up your world with those of your friends, which explains all those annoying Facebook requests you get for the game.

So what does this have to do with Lady Gaga and this new GagaVille? And more important: What LSD-soaked imagination came up with this parallel universe, where instead of plants and animals your plot of land consists of sparkly unicorns, giant crystals jutting up from the earth, and something called “Fame Sheep”? TechCrunch gives a little bit of background on the partnership between Gaga, Clear Channel Radio and Zynga, the company behind FarmVille:

On May 17, Lady Gaga and Zynga will unveil, GagaVille – a neighboring farm on FarmVille, which is a Gaga inspired farm in-gam. GagaVille will showcase Lady Gaga’s style and themes from the album and videos (crystals, unicorns, sheep on motorcycles); and gamers will have exclusive access in Farmville to songs from “Born This Way” before the album is released later in the month. From May 17 to 19, players can unlock and stream a new un-released track per day. And from May 20 to 23, players can unlock and stream a significant portion of songs from the new album, plus special bonus remixes.

Well, that seems pretty straightforward … until you start to play the game and forget how many motorcycles you need to grow in order to trade in your flying horse to stream “Electric Chapel.”

Of course, if the thought of futzing around with My Little Ponies on mescaline seems like too much trouble to get Gaga’s music, you can always just drop $25 on a Zynga gift card at Best Buy and get the album for free.

Clear Channel, FarmVille and Lady Gaga: I guess it does make some sort of twisted sense that these three megabrands would join up to create something that resembles a dream you might have after eating a chocolate burrito and taking two Ambien.

And in case you weren’t confused enough, here’s a promotional video Zynga made to honor the occasion. It’s just as coherent as you’d expect. Enjoy!

Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew. More Drew Grant.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 3 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
242 points243 points | 10 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
179 points180 points | 1 comment
vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
201 points202 points | 46 comments
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
55 points56 points | 8 comments
vote
How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government -- "...much of the U.S. economic security support system consists of subsidies for the affluent in the form of tax breaks, like those for private retirement savings plans such as 401(k)s and private employer-provided health insurance."
42 points43 points | 3 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations