Socially connected game mega-force Zynga has teamed up with Lady Gaga and Clear Channel Radio to create an area within the wildly popular FarmVille game known as GagaVille.
Check your calendars folks, it’s May. THIS IS NOT AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE!
As if the self-proclaimed pop diva didn’t have her meat hooks in the hearts and minds of enough 12 year old girls and early 20s gay men, she will now be spreading like an infection to the droves of bored housewives that like to tend virtual crops. Devoted Lady Gaga fans will now be able to hear early releases of her songs streamed through the Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio service. They will also be announcing 148 different codes (and you thought over 150 new Pokémon was a bad thing) that will unlock Lady Gaga themed items, such as sheep riding motorcycles or magical unicorns.
The perfect outfit for shoveling poop out of a barn in GagaVille.
It’s really hard to say who thought this idea up, but the trinity of Lady Gaga, Clear Channel, and Zynga has to be one of the most evil and unholy alliances since Hitler and Mussolini. Overwhelming lack of innovation or originality coupled with a strange and shared demographic doesn’t necessarily mean two media entities should join forces. It’s sad to think that there are scores of indie game developers and musicians that would kill for even half the attention that these to social phenomenon have, but because they don’t have the budget to shove themselves down our throats every day, most of their work will never be known or recognized by the masses.
What’s truly frightening is this could be a very slippery slope “Zyngaga” has set us upon. We’ve already seen “gamification” sneaking into our everyday lives through things like Foursquare. A lot of movies already get game tie-ins, but do cultural cancers like Lady Gaga need even one more channel by which they can invade our lives? Only artists that submit to the rule of gigantic labels who own various other media outlets and dictate how their musicians can and can’t make music will be able to survive. Game developers could likely look at the amount of cash Zynga is raking in and adopt the company’s very lazy approach to making games. It may not be too long before games like BrittanyField, RhiannaOpolis, or SnoopVille start invading our news feeds. Okay, I admit that I would probably play SnoopVille, but who in their right mind wouldn’t?