Here's an idyllic scene: a hamlet where the sun always shines, crops always grow and your friends drop by to sweep your yard to the sound of guitar music. Animals do what they are told, there is no disease, and lendin' folks a helpin' hand makes you richer and wiser.
这是一个田园诗般的景象：小村庄里，阳光永远普照，庄稼不断生长，朋友造访，伴着吉他乐曲打扫你家院子。动物们驯顺听话，没有疾病侵扰，助人为乐让你越来越富有，越来越聪明。

"It reminds me of my childhood," says one player, Lia Curran, 37, a pharmacist from London. "Right now I'm growing wheat and poinsettia, I've got a small orchard, and I'm rearing some chickens and some cows. I like having the animals. It's soothing."
“它让我想起了童年时代，”37岁的玩家莉娅·柯伦说。她是伦敦的一名药剂师。“我正在种植小麦和一品红，我有一个小果园，还养着一些鸡和奶牛。我喜欢饲养动物。它能抚慰人心。”

Curran's fledgling herd, however, is nothing more than a collection of computer-generated cartoons. FarmVille is an online computer game built into the social networking site Facebook and is described by its players as "addictive". Launched last June by Zynga Game Network, FarmVille now has more players than Twitter's entire user base--or more than the population of the UK. The players are largely women over the age of 35.
但是，柯伦刚刚饲养起来的动物只不过是一群电脑生成的卡通形象而已。FarmVille是一款内置于社交网站“脸谱”的网上电脑游戏，被玩家们形容为“让人上瘾”。

FarmVille cunningly unites the worlds of social networking and gaming. Players are given a patch of ground with six fields, "cash", a few seeds and a plough and have to build up wealth, skills and neighbours to create bigger, better, richer farms.
FarmVille巧妙地将社交网络和游戏世界结合在一起。玩家获得一片有六块田的土地、“现金”、几粒种子和一把犁杖，必须积累财富、技能，并网络邻居，来建设更大、更好、更富有的农场。

Inviting your online friends to play means you earn more and get free gifts; you rise rapidly through the first levels but, once hooked, have to work harder and harder with no final level or goal in sight.
如果邀请网友加入游戏，就可以赚到更多的钱并获取免费礼品；在初级阶段你会进步得很快，然而一旦着了迷，就必须加倍努力，要达到{zg}层级或{zj2}目标却遥遥无期。

"It's very moreish," says Curran. She hasn't yet paid real-world money to advance in the game, but her friends do. One buys extra virtual currency at the exchange rate of $240 (£145) in FarmVille for $40 (£24) in the real world.
“真是让人欲罢不能，”柯伦说。她还没有为了游戏晋级花过钱，但她的朋友却花过。用现实世界的40美元（折合24英镑）可以购买FarmVille中240美元（折合145英镑）的虚拟货币。

"I'd expanded on FarmVille as much as I could, but I just wanted a pond and some hedges," says the woman, who is too embarrassed to be named. "I didn't tell my husband I'd paid real money because he'd think I'm mad. But then he did keep me waiting in the car outside our house while he harvested his raspberries."
“我极力在FarmVille上扩大我的农场，但我就是想要一个池塘和一些树篱，”这位羞于透露姓名的妇女说。“我没有告诉我丈夫我支付了真钱，因为他会以为我疯了。但当时他让我在屋外的车里等着，而自己却在收获树莓。”

Brian Dudley, chief executive at Broadway Lodge, an addiction treatment centre, warns that this sort of obsessive play can lead to an addiction as severe as gambling.
百老汇洛奇上瘾xx中心总裁赖恩·达德利警告说，这种令人着魔的游戏会导致上瘾，其严重程度与xx无异。

"Games like this draw people into a fantasy world that's separate from real life where there are no issues, and where things are simple and controllable," he says.
他说：“这种游戏把人吸引到一个与现实生活分离的幻想世界，那里不存在争端，一切都简单和可以操控。”

Indeed, FarmVille addicts have already faced their first big scandal. On the site, players can take advantage of special offers on ads that promise more virtual cash and points for taking free trials or entering competitions.
的确，FarmVille成瘾者已经遭遇首桩重大丑闻。该网站在广告中提供了让玩家得益的特别赠品，它给出的承诺是，玩家只要免费试用或参与竞赛，就可以获得更多的虚拟现金和点数。

Last month, however, TechCrunch, a US website, revealed the scams behind these freebies: the product come-ons often click through to trial services or quizzes that ask for credit card details or mobile phone numbers. Small print warns that their accounts will be debited for months to come.
但是上个月，美国一家网站TechCrunch揭露了这些免费品背后的骗局：点击充满诱惑力的产品广告，常常链接到需要询问信用卡详情或手机号码的试用服务或小测试。小号字附加条款则警告，账款会在几个月后记入其帐户的借方。

"I clicked on an ad that offered a free IQ test in exchange for points in the game, took the test and punched in my mobile number so they could text me the result," says one victim, Momar Jahihti. "When I checked my statement, they were surreptitiously billing me $30 [£18] per month."
“我点击了一则提供免费智商测试的广告，来换取游戏点数。我完成了测试，输入了我的手机号码，以便他们可以将结果用短信发给我，”一名受害者莫马尔·杰希提说。“当我查看我的结算单时，发现他们居然偷偷摸摸地给我开了每月30美元（18英镑）的账单。”

Two weeks ago, a group of US players launched a class action against Zynga and Facebook. "Most, if not all, of the online advertisements presented through Zynga are scams," the lawsuit alleges. "The advertisements are highly misleading and often result in users subscribing to goods or services that they do not want or need."
两周前，一群美国玩家发起对Zynga和“脸谱”网的集体诉讼。“通过Zynga发布的大多数——甚至是全部的——网上广告都是骗局，”该诉讼称。“这些广告误导性很强，往往会使用户订购他们并不想要或不需要的商品和服务。”

According to Nick O'Neill from the social media site All Facebook, Zynga is making $500,000 (£304,000) a day from its Facebook games, in turn spending some $50m (£30m) a year on Facebook ads.
据社交媒体网站All Facebook的尼克·奥尼尔称，Zynga从其“脸谱”网游戏中{yt}可赚50万美元（30.4万英镑），继而每年投入约5000万美元（3000万英镑）用作“脸谱”网上的广告费。

If all that weren't enough, FarmVille doesn't even function like a proper farm: in FarmVille, wheat grows in two days--in real life, it takes months. But play continues nevertheless.
如果所有这些还不够说明问题，那么还可以说，FarmVille的运作程式并不像一个真正的农场：在FarmVille，小麦生长期为两天——而在现实生活中，则需要数月。尽管如此，游戏还在继续。