An email claiming that Facebook users will soon have to pay to play the popular game Farmville is a hoax, according to Caroline McCarthy at CNET. A fan site had posted an email that a reader said had come from Farmville parent company Zynga, claiming that the game was moving out of “beta” mode ending March 31, with a new subscription model costing $5.95 month and offering advanced features.
Of course, that also means that the first day of the “new” Farmville would be on April 1, leading McCarthy to speculate that it was an early April Fool’s Day joke. For their part, spokespeople from Zynga have denied that they will be moving out of their current model, which sees the company make money from 75 million monthly users who use real-world money to purchase virtual goods to use in the game.
