The innovation of FarmVille was in making games accessible to busy adults

> giving them a place to invest and express themselves and be seen by people in their lives as creative

nice way to capture it. i mainly think of these as incremental type games, about the investment, slowly grinding. but yeah getting to be seen, trying to look nice while doing it- that was definitely a huge part of the social gaming craze, was brand new & had tons of placememt all over the feed/people's walls.

At first glance I wouldn't think of FarmVille as being a place where people go to be creative. But it totally makes sense. There are a number of constraints, but the player has to design and layout everything.