Facebook Games I hate To Play

I play facebook games, but that is nothing new, practically everyone on facebook plays facebook games. But what is perhaps not so common is that I play facebook games that I hate to play. Like really and truly hate to play.

They frustrate me beyond belief yet I continue to play them.

Over the time I have been playing one of these games in particular, I have been obsessed to the point of ignoring my family, my friends and even my guests to make sure I am on facebook, poised and ready to ‘hunt’ at reset. Luckily I have overcome that particular obsession and I no longer find the need to run to the computer from another room like a crazy lady, drive home from a shopping trip, a luncheon, a party or any other occasion that happened to clash with reset, nor do I have to end phone conversations minutes before that magical time each day of 3 minutes past 3 in the afternoon.

This particular game, scavenger hunt, is highly addictive and highly competitive. When I first started playing, it was a lovely game, an enjoyable game, a team game. I had so much fun being in my little group of friends. We would help each other by sending links either publicly or privately to make sure that we were all able to finish the card each day, and the boards had so much chatter happening that some days we were laughing so hard and chatting about some things so totally removed from the game that we would even forget to hunt.

But then the creator changed the rules, the links we sent each other were disabled, there was to be no more helping friends out. The game had reached for a new level and in doing so, lost many of its happy players at the same time. It wasn’t until I started playing the game in its new format that I realised that I was actually quite the competitive person. Before this time, I was always easy going, happy to help out friends before myself and found it very satisfying to know that all my friends were able to finish. But now, things were different. This game had put friends against friends, now you had to fight to grab the daily items, now you had to fight to be in the top 100, now you had to fight to stay in the game. No more Mr Nice Guy.

Well I started fighting and I fought well. We had to start expanding our friends list so that we could have more places to hunt, so I started asking strangers to be my friend. Then Awards were introduced for the game so I had to aim to achieve them all. People were getting their facebook accounts closed down at one stage as one of the awards was to have 2000 friends playing the game at once. Of course you are not allowed to ask that many people to be your friend at once as facebook thinks you are soliciting people and they close down your account. So there were a lot of unhappy players about.

Other people started opening up second and third facebook accounts just to try and get an edge for places to look for the elusive ‘extremely rare’ items needed each day. Then, one day, things started to get nasty.

Anyone who managed to make it to the number one place on the ranking surely must be cheating. The competition was so fierce that everyone outside of the top 100 thought everyone inside the top 100 was cheating. And if you were ‘unlucky’ enough to make it to the number one place, well, need I say more... the fight was on.

I won season 14 and I was over the moon with joy, but I was accused of cheating every step of the way. I had ranked in the top 5 or 10 for a few seasons now so I was used to people popping up in chat asking me for tips, telling me to send them items or just to verbally abuse me, call me a cheater and disappear again. This mentality that had taken over the once pleasant and amusing game was so dark and disturbing that it actually started to make me sick. I had to stop reading the discussion boards and turn off facebook chat as the negativity was getting to me.

At one stage someone even started a thread to ‘delete daisy because she cheats’. The creator of the game had to step in and tell people that I was not a cheater and delete that thread himself. Times were not so good.

I started playing less and less but I still couldn’t give the game away, the game I now hated to play. People had ruined the atmosphere and the spirit of the game completely. I was not the only one to be accused of cheating, it was anyone who dared to make the effort to reach the number one place, anyone who was foolish enough to stand out from the crowd, anyone who put in 150% effort to claw their way to that placing. In fact, anyone in the top 5 or even the top 10 was open to bullying by the crowd struggling to keep up behind them.

The day I knew that I really had a problem with the game was the day I put the game ahead of my sick child. That day I crossed the line, that day should never have happened. I have quit the game three or four times but I keep going back to it. It may take weeks or months but I eventually keep going back, my hope is that one day I am able to quit and stay away from it forever. What kind of mother puts a dumb facebook game ahead of her sick child, that is inexcusable. This game has also shown me that I have an addictive personality, something else I never knew before playing scavenger hunt.

I am happy to say that although I continue to play this game, I am rarely on the computer at reset and if I miss a day, or two I don’t freak out anymore. I am even able to walk away from a whole season at a time now, but still can’t stay away forever.

Oh, that particular award of having 2000 active scavenger hunt friends on your friends is still eluding me to this day and I am still trying to achieve it, but I am taking it slowly. It seems for every one person I add as a new scavenger hunt friend, two more have just deleted me. I wonder if I will get that award before I give up on the game for good... or will I ever really be able to give up on this game, this game that I hate to play?