Playdom Games Don’t Require Facebook

I used to have a Facebook account. Earlier this year, Facebook stopped being fun (to make a long story short). I have since deactivated my Facebook account, for good, and have no intention of returning. The problem, though, is I have started to miss playing some of the little “time waster” games that I used to log into Facebook to play.

Zynga might be best known for their Farmville game, but they also have several others to choose from. Some of their games are accessible through Zynga.com. Hidden Chronicles is one of those “find the hidden object” type of games that I started playing when I was still on Facebook. Farmville isn’t part of Zynga.com, but they do have something new called Farmville 2. It sounded interesting.

This is when I encountered a big problem. It turns out that you cannot play any of Zynga’s games on the Zynga website unless you have a Facebook account. You can’t even log in without one. Clearly, Zynga doesn’t have any interest in attracting gamers who don’t happen to use Facebook.

Personally, I found this to be disappointing. I’ve already decided that I am done with Facebook. Zynga’s games are fun, but they aren’t important enough to me to convince me to get involved with Facebook again. It’s not worth it!

Fortunately, Zynga’s competitor is accepting all gamers, (even those without Facebook accounts). You can go to Playdom.com and sign in with an email address.

Two of the three games that you can play on Playdom’s website, Gardens of Time, and Blackwood and Bell Mysteries, are ones that I used to play on Facebook. Both are the “find the hidden object” type of games that I enjoy. I missed playing Gardens of Time more than I realized!

The games at Playdom, and the games at Zynga, can be played for free. However, it is possible to spend real world money in order to get something especially cool to use in a particular game. Right now, the only game I spend money on is World of Warcraft.

There is potential that someday, I will decided to spend a few bucks on one of these “time waster” games. Zynga has made it absolutely impossible for me to consider giving them money. Playdom, on the other hand, has been very welcoming. It is obvious which company has the chance to get some real world money from me, and which company does not.