My Farm Experiment (not affiliated with the Zynga game) in the UK lets players run an actual farm on the Wimpole Estate, which is owned by the National Trust, a British charity. Some 10,000 people will help farm manager Richard Morris run things. Here’s the catch, though: It’s not free. It costs £30 (about $49) to become a virtual farmer. That payment goes to the National Trust.
Project manager John Alexander told The Guardian that FarmVille was an inspiration for the effort. Coincidentally, Zynga introduced an English Countyside extension of the game in March.
The first vote in the real-life effort will go live May 26. After that, virtual farmers will vote “at least once a month” on issues related to running the farm, like the type of crops, livestock and wider impact on the environment, according to the website. In the meantime, members are expected to converse with each other on the site about those issues and others.
To keep apprised of the action, there’s also an Explore the Farm map of the 280 hectares of the farm.
The video below features Morris outlining the program.