Software:Toucai

Toucai is a popular online gaming application on many of China ’s social network sites (SNS). Players own a virtual farm where they plant fruits and vegetables. They purchase supplies like seeds, pesticide and fertilizer at a virtual market. Players can even buy guard dogs to protect their crops while they are away from the farm. While part of the game is about growing and protecting your own harvest, the real fun is sneaking into your friends’ farms to steal their vegetables..

五分钟 Five Minutes Xu Cheng, founder of 五分钟 (Five Minutes)(http://www.fminutes.com/) and his team created Kaixin Nongchang also known as the Toucai game. Xu Cheng’s Shanghai-based team first released the game as an application on Xiaonei (now known as Ren Ren Wang), a leading Chinese social network whose user base is primarily college students and recent grads. The two companies have a profit sharing partnership in which Ren Ren Wang and Five Minutes split each month’s earnings which now total to approximately one million renminbi per month. Five Minutes has the option to end the partnership at any point as it sees fit. Five Minutes shares similar partnerships with other Chinese SNS operators; however, Tencent took full control of rights to the game for its QQZone platform through a one-time multimillion renminbi payment to Five Minutes. Virtual Interactions, Real World Emotions Why is toucai so popular? How is it able to appeal to the young, the old and everyone in between? An article produced by iResearch entitled 三个“菜农”的故事 The Story of Three “Farmers” (http://news.iresearch.cn/0468/20091129/106035.shtml) provides some insight. The author interviews participants representing three distinct age groups: a 14-year-old middle school student, a 25-year-old white-collar worker and a 49-year-old mother. Each of the three respondents provides a different explanation for why he or she enjoys playing toucai, but I feel there is a common rationale that links their responses. The main source of pleasure and enjoyment is not from the hours spent playing the game, but rather it is from the real world indirect benefits.

The middle school student brags: “我是班长，农场级别也是最高的！” I’m class president; my toucai farm level is also the highest!

The white-collar worker excitedly recounts a recent toucai encounter: “有一次更牛，我一个初中同学到我的农场来偷菜，我才发现, 居然因为种菜又联系上了” This one time was even more awesome, I found an old middle school classmate on my farm who came to steal my vegetables, surprisingly because of this game we had a chance to reconnect.

Toucai is 49 year-old Mrs. Wu’s favorite hobby. She doesn’t care how many vegetables she harvests, or who steals from her – the main reason why she enjoys playing toucai is because it is an alternative way for her to interact with her son while he is away from home.

Xu Cheng, 5 Minutes’ founder, seems to have achieved his goal to make kaixin nongchang a true Social Game. People may spend countless hours playing online, they may even spend excessive amounts of renminbi to purchase additional seeds and guard dogs, but when all is said and done, the true attraction of the toucai obsession is not the virtual world farming, but the real world interpersonal connections.