With the seemingly endless number of based games pervading Facebook, educational social gaming aims to use this new form of entertainment to educate. Having played a number of these games, I feel reinvention of these games into venues users can learn from is something that could help them outside the virtual world. Imagine how much more would be known about sustainability, organic farming and renewable energy had Farmville embedded content teaching the benefits of sustainable technologies and organic farming?  

Games like Farmville and Happy Aquarium provide endless virtual advertising space customizable to each individual’s interests based on their choices within the game. Designing an educational social gaming platform, geared towards educating users about products, their uses, and the brands available to them could be the key to harnessing younger generations learning and buying power.  

Educational social gaming would not only advertise products, educational social gaming would teach users how to use those products, while helping build a market and brand loyalty.  In the same way television commercials use fantasy based imagery living in a virtual environment, i.e. cartoon characters, to market their products, educational social gaming could introduce intelligent products to consumers in a virtual world they would then be able to buy in a real marketplace. Specific to educational social gaming, products being introduced could be a new organic food line or an idea offering gamers the ability to learn something about renewable energy or organic farming. 

However, educational social gaming does run a risk in doing this, being that gamers usually play these games to escape the realities of the real world. This is a hurtle educational social gaming will have to overcome.