Mr.Farmville

Earlier this year, the folks over at Watercooler (now Kabam) and Sport Illustrated released a Facebook version of fantasy football for the short spring football season. With the fall 2010 NFL season getting ready to start up, SI Fantasy Football, presented by GMC and Finish Line, has reappeared in its latest incarnation. It’s a simple enough app to learn, with a lot of familiar features for all the fantasy football players out there.

Obviously, the biggest concern with a fantasy football title is the sea of other clones and imitators circulating the web. However, SI Fantasy Football does manage to stand out with what the developers claim is the first, and only, multiplatform rendition, not only designed around social mechanics, but playable on Facebook, SI.com, and any mobile device.

Starting out, players have two choices. They may either start their own league, or join an existing one. If the league is public, anyone can join so long as space is available (20 people is the max), and should it be private, the creator has exclusive invitation rights. From here, it’s all fairly straightforward as a date will be set for a “draft” and players will pick and choose who they want for their fantasy football team, so long as at least four teams are present.

Once that’s done, the team owners in each league face off against one another in head-to-head matches, and based on typical fantasy football rules, a winner is determined. To clarify these rules for anyone unfamiliar with fantasy football concepts: as drafted “virtual” players progress through real NFL games, their stats, such as yards rushing, passing touchdowns, sacks, etc., are translated to the virtual game. The better your draft picks do in reality, the better they do in cyberspace.

In addition to initial drafts, players also have to be aware of potential trades and free agents. Obviously, this requires a lot of monitoring of both what’s happening in the NFL as well as in your own SI Fantasy Football league, so Kabam has integrated a means to keep track of your team directly through a mobile phone. Since the game is in conjunction with Sports Illustrated, it also conveniently incorporates both NFL news with the fantasy football tips. It even has a downloadable “Fantasy Football Draft Kit” containing top 100 player profiles, position rankings, strategies, and even a mock draft.

Of all the game’s elements, the biggest differentiator is the fact that it is on Facebook. Traditionally speaking, fantasy football can be pretty hit or miss when it comes to social elements. Some people play just to play, while others like to rub their victories in other peoples’ faces. Well, it’s no different here, except that Facebook makes it exceedingly simple to do the latter, allowing players to share their fantasy going-ons, post trash talk to walls, and even take part in local discussion boards.

Overall, SI Fantasy Football doesn’t bring a lot of new concepts to the table, but it’s still an evolution of the game. In truth, building it out socially on Facebook seemed like a logical place for it to go in the first place, and now, fans can play the game, communicate with friends, and get some of their sports news all in one centralized location. Already the game is north of 117,000 monthly active users, and the NFL season hasn’t even started yet. How it will do, once it does, will be the real test.

Source: Inside Social Games