Sorry, but the story left out the most important point. Farmville has already started to affect WoW, and not in a positive way. It's put a greedy gleam in Blizz's (or in reality, Activision's, although Blizz denies they're being forced by Activision) eye, and Kotick and company are willing to make fundamental changes to how WoW operates in order to get in on the cash that FaceBook's "social gaming" offers. (Never mind that it isn't particularly social, and it's not really gaming either.) They've demonstrated that they don't really concern themselves much with the established player-base, and, blinded by the numbers, are willing to alienate us in order to get more money from these "gamers".

The foolish part of this is that playing "Farmville" doesn't make you a gamer. The majority of people who I know who play "Farmville" and the like on FaceBook would never play WoW. So they're basically willing to ruin WoW for a shot at making money off of people who will _never_ cross over. The best they can actually hope for is that some WoW players will think it's "cool" that WoW is following the "social gaming" trend. (Again, I use that term euphemistically. How does it really improve WoW to have "Real ID", for example? It doesn't. Some people like it, but it isn't necessary and, in the case of such a hot commodity in the eyes of hackers, is really too risky for smart players.)

So, it looks like BlizzAvision is willing to toss us over their shoulder in order to make sweet deals with FaceBook and its advertisers. How will Farmville affect WoW? It already has, and the affect has been negative. Oh, but wait-- they have "even more super-duper plans!" for us. :(

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