It’s happened to all of us. You see this –

and your hopes are raised. It’s a facebook notification! What could it be? Did somebody like a hilariously witty post of yours or comment about how handsome you are on one of your photos? You click on it and –





It’s a stupid game invite.



I get about a half dozen of these a day. People on my friends list inviting me to play some dumbass game on facebook. What really pisses me off is that I know they don’t care. It’s not like they’re playing Frontierville or Mafia Wars and suddenly think “OMG this game is so fun! My friend Bill would probably love to play this! I should let him know!” These games are nothing more than straight up pyramid schemes and players get rewards for spamming their friends. I know this because I totally used to play those games all the time.



I’m not proud but I used to be one of those people that sent out game requests all the time. I eventually realized what I was doing (or just became bored) and stopped playing them. In my experience facebook games can be separated into two categories: THE SPAM MACHINE and THE KINDA ACTUAL GAME.



THE SPAM MACHINE is the text based RPG like Mafia Wars or Superhero Wars or War Wars. The model is loosely based off games like Hobowars and Kindom of Loathing but they’ve taken out all the story, dialog, puzzle solving and fun. In these games you basically “go on missions” (click a button) until you level up. You belong to a guild that is nothing more than the number of people on your friends list who have started an account with the game. The bigger your guild is, more missions you can complete. You can also fight other guilds. If your guild is bigger, you win the fight.



Most of the SPAM MACHINE games only allow you to complete so many “missions” in a given hour but will give our extra missions or other in game bonuses simply for inviting friends every day. These games are turning people into Nigerian Princes every day.



THE KINDA ACTUAL GAME are flash games that actually have a little bit of entertainment merit, depending on your taste. These are Angry Birds, Bejewled, Farmville (although Farmville does have some SPAM MACHINE qualities) etc. These games don’t require you to have a bunch of friends play but still offer plenty of in game bonuses for having friends play.



Either way, if you receive an invite to play any of these games. Your friend doesn’t give a shit about you or actually think you might like it. You’re just another brick in their Castleville. If you want to stop these invites from flooding your notifications bar, here’s what you need to do.



Call them out on their shit.



Yes, I know that you can block certain game requests but this attacks the problem at it’s source.



The next time you receive a game request on facebook. Just write a message on that person’s wall. Something like –



“Thanks but really don’t want to play Bubble Blitz.” A little too polite. Might not drive the message home.



“I DO NOT WANT TO PLAY BUBBLE BLITZ” or “STOP SENDING ME GAME REQUESTS”. Assertive. To the point.



“FUCK YOU I DON’T WANT TO PLAY BUBBLE SHITS OR WHATEVER. IF YOU SEND ME ANY MORE GAME REQUESTS I WILL EAT YOUR FUCKING SOUL.” A little too agressive. Will probably result in that person unfriending you.



Sending the person who sent you the game request a mesage could also stop the game requests from coming but by posting it on their wall you’ve made it public. They know that these requests aren’t wanted. If they did, they’d post on your wall about it instead of sending you a private notification. If they get four, five or more posts on their walls from different people telling them to stop then they’ll just stop sending requests all together. Every farmville will wither and every Mafia will be gunned down.