Though not every Stanford student has been on a farm, many proudly own hundreds of acres of farmland and herds of animals. They do this through the social game FarmVille, an online platform that enables users to simulate the experience of owning and tending a farm — a game that, like many others in the genre, has its roots at Stanford.

FarmVille belongs to a growing category of online applications including Mafia Wars and Tap Tap Revenge referred to as “social games,” so called because people play them with friends on social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, as well as cellular devices like the iPhone. Much of the brainpower behind these games comes from alumni of the Graduate School of Business, many of whom are involved in the founding and management of tech companies such as Zynga Game Network Inc. and Tapulous Inc.

Social games have grown tremendously in popularity over the last few years due to their duality as a form of entertainment and a platform for social interaction, explained Haim Mendelson, professor of electronic business at the Graduate School of Business.

“You can communicate with people you haven’t seen in two years, but only invest five minutes in [the game],” he said. “An easy, ubiquitous and fun connection is very powerful.”

Zynga, whose current operating director is William “Bing” Gordon, MBA ’78, created the most popular social game, FarmVille, in 2009. Now boasting over 62 million users, FarmVille is available as an application on Facebook and on the iPhone and Android; in FarmVille, players run farms and earn “coins” by harvesting crops or selling animal products.

Justine DiPrete ’11 recalls a time when she was an avid user of FarmVille, at one point progressing up to Level 24 of the game.

“The best part about social games is the competitive aspect with your friends,” she said. “When your friends are on Level 27 and have 17 cows, then that gives you motivation to play.”

Though social games are relatively easy and cheap to create — Mendelson estimated one could be built in three weeks with $5,000 — the intrinsic challenges of social media give larger, more experienced companies an advantage.

“Large companies like Zynga have a lot of money and can advertise on Facebook, for example,” he said. “They have high quality analytical ability, so they can track how users are responding to the game and adapt quickly. The barrier to developing a game is low, but the barrier to developing a successful game is high.”

Developing that rare successful game, however, can pay off big time. FarmVille, for example, offers virtual goods such as superior tools and special crops to users willing to pay a small monetary fee. Though only around 3 percent of social gamers opt to spend real money on these virtual perks, the bottom line remains favorable for the companies. According to Mendelson, sales of virtual goods reached about $3 billion worldwide in the 2009-2010 fiscal year.

In addition, some gaming companies are bought out and receive generous financial compensation. Tapulous, founded by Andrew Lacy MBA ’05 and Bart Decrem JD ’92, created a series of games called Tap Tap Revenge that pits users against their friends to determine who could most skillfully tap buttons on their iPhones. On July 1, Walt Disney Co. paid a reported $35 million to buy the company.

While Farmville and Tap Tap Revenge are based exclusively online, the next wave of social media may ground itself more in the real world. Tristan Walker MBA ’10 is business development director for Foursquare, an application that allows users to “check in” at venues using mobile devices to receive points and exchange tips about restaurants, stores and other attractions.

“We’re trying to get people to explore their city and incentivizing them to do so,” Walker said. “Some people want to know where their friends are, some want to unlock deals they couldn’t get elsewhere, and some want to get interesting tips about their city.”

In the future, Walker predicts, applications will continuously tailor themselves to the specific needs of the consumer. He offers one such development that he envisions for Foursquare: “Say you check into a coffee shop in New York City at 7 a.m. everyday,” Walker said. “If you take a flight to San Francisco and it’s 7 in the morning, we could help introduce you to cool coffee shops there as well.”