It seems like the Facebook phenomenon known as FarmVille, where a player can experience the thrills of being a farmer, has proven to be a bit of a problem for a family in the UK. Particularly because the son of a UK woman had racked up over £625 in credit card debt for the virtual money in FarmVille, but only after spending £288 of his own money. The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, was not able to recover any of her funds spent from Zynga, who created FarmVille.

"The first use of my card was on 14 March. I discovered it on the 29th and the card was stopped at that point. Any transactions after that date were already in the system, so what I thought was a £427 spend turned into £625 over the next few days.

The total spend is about £905, but the credits are still rolling in. Facebook and [game creator] Zynga will not refund anything as [the son] lives in my house. Facebook has disabled his account and Zynga has unhelpfully suggested I use password protection on computers in the future."

When asked why the boy had spent so much money, his response was simply, "[They] brought out the good stuff I wanted."

It's not entirely surprising that people would pay real money for fake money, we've seen it before. I'm not opposed to buying DLC for games, the purchase is meant to enhance my game experience in some way. However, paying real money for fake money to buy things in a game just seems so counter-intuitive. You're not getting an immediate product out of the service, you're only purchasing a means of conveyance that will hopefully get you what you want within the game. I think Mike Krahulik from Penny-Arcade put it best once when he talked about the things you buy in Playstation Home and how it didn't serve a real purpose, much like the horse armor in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Call me crazy, I just want to buy something that actually adds to my gaming experience.

Source: Guardian UK