Some of us played for years, long after the fad wore off. The difference between the swirve games and facebook is that a community grew up around the game. From

Some of us played for years, long after the fad wore off. The difference between the swirve games and facebook is that a community grew up around the game. From what I've seen of the facebook games, it's mostly your existing friends. I haven't heard of Mafia Wars meetups like E2025 or Utopia had, for example. (And yes, there were ways to get extra turns via various offers. I remember having to research something on goto.com every day, as one.) What swirve did well is create a community. That's what an online game should aspire to, and I have only seem glimpses of that with the facebook games, even with the obnoxious updates.