Farmville is one of the most popular applications in the history of Facebook. On it, players would tend to their virtual crops. This quickly became an obsession for some people and spurred numerous blogs like the aptly named "Farmville Freak."
Over 62 million people signed up to play the game, and sometimes as many as 22 million people were signing in to play it per day! Real farmers probably spend less time on their real-life crops than some of these players do on their virtual ones.
In fact, Farmville players outnumbered actual farmers 60 to 1. This doesn't mean that real farmers didn't enjoy the game though. One said that it helped remind him of the methodology of farming and why he started farming in the first place. Experts say the game was so successful for the same reasons that Facebook is--it allows you to express yourself, connect with friends and invest in it.