I watched a very interesting talk on the future of gaming [1] where the topic of games like Farmville and Mafia Wars comes up later in the discussion.

The speaker, who's also a notable game designer himself, makes an interesting observation. At a meta-level, Farmville is also a game where the developers/designers at Zynga are "farming" the players to attempt to get them to play more, be more sucked into the game, etc.

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I'd like to learn more about game mechanics and see if I can use them in more productive ways as well. The traditional method appears to be books:

http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-books-articles-and-or-blogposts-that-discuss-game-mechanics

I was interested in doing something more interactive, like a workshop or a discussion group or building a prototype. Suggestions? Ideas?

[1] http://edtech.rice.edu/cms/?option=com_iwebcast&task=webcast&action=details&event=2349