Happy Farm

Lore & Background

Happy Farm was developed by the Chinese social game developer 5 Minutes. Its development was complete in May 2008, testing was complete in July the same year, and the game was released in late 2008. The game allowed players to grow crops, trade with others, sell produce, and steal from neighbors. Its primary inspiration was the Flash game 'Farm Town' and similar social games, not the Japanese RPG series Story of Seasons.

Reader's Guide

Happy Farm's significance lies in its massive popularity and its influence on the social network gaming genre. At its peak, it had 23 million daily active users, with an estimated 15 million urban white-collar workers spending more than five hours a day on the game. Its host, Tencent QQ, capped new player registrations at 2 million per day due to demand. The game inspired numerous later farming social network games, including FarmVille, Farm Town, Country Story, and others, as well as parodies. Wired included Happy Farm in its list of 'The 15 Most Influential Games of the Decade' at #14, citing its major influence on social network gaming and its inspiration of 'a dozen Facebook clones,' the largest being Zynga's FarmVille. In 2009, Harvest Moon developers Marvelous Entertainment released their own farming social network game, Bokujo Monogatari, for the Japanese site Mixi, following Happy Farm's success.

Did You Know?

• At its peak, there were 23 million daily active users logging on at least every 24 hours.
• Happy Farm was discontinued on September 25, 2017.