FarmVille. Just the name likely conjures up some vivid thoughts and opinions in the minds of gamers everywhere. As the flagship casual social game for both Facebook and Zynga, FarmVille can't help but be a lightning rod for debates about gaming's audiences, game design, and the role that video games can and do play in our daily lives. Time labeled the game one of the "fifty worst inventions" of all time, but that hasn't stopped over 80 million people from logging on and doing some cow and crop clicking.

And now Zynga (which itself has attracted plenty of controversy recently) is going to try and recreate the game's success with a brand new version called, simply, FarmVille 2. Director of Design Wright Bagwell showed Joystiq what the future of FarmVille's crops and farm animals looks like, how the game will reach out (but not too far) toward a more hardcore audience, and how Zynga plans to take the world's most popular and oft-hated casual and social game and make it even more casual and social.

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/09/05/fa...-not-too-much/