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Microsoft’s recent FarmVille promotion grew Bing’s Facebook fan page from 100K fans to over 500K fans in 24 hours and gave away 1,200,000 Farm Cash dollars in the process. Each participant in the promotion was rewarded with 3 Farm Cash dollars for becoming Bing fans on Facebook. 

Some of the most desirable virtual goods are sold only for Farm Cash. Farm Cash is earned in the game at a very slow rate but players can purchase more Farm Cash using Facebook credits, credit cards and Paypal, as well as alternative payments like Zong (mobile) and Offers. Players get discounts on Farm Cash for buying in bulk.  The best deal you can get from the FarmVille app is 310 Farm Cash dollars for $50 USD, or 16 cents per Farm Cash dollar.

At that rate, Microsoft valued a Facebook fan at $0.48 and would have spent $192,000 on the campaign. However, it’s likely Microsoft received a huge discount for such a large buy. A social gaming insider told me today that Microsoft paid $0.10 per unit of Farm Cash. At that rate, Microsoft set the value of a Facebook fan at $0.30, paying $120,000 to acquire their new fan base.

Gamasutra has some great numbers in a post about the GDC Social Games Summit presentation given by Amitt Mahajan, the lead designer on FarmVille. Here are the numbers that jumped out at me:

• 5 weeks to launch
• 6 web developers
• 2 artists
• 3 designers

Let’s do some back of the napkin math. First, we’ll assume everyone working on the project is a contractor. As a rough estimate, we’ll charge $100/hr for each position. 11 people for 5 weeks makes 55 man weeks. We’ll ignore any additional costs for internal management working with the contractors. $100 per man hour x 40 hours per week x 55 man weeks = $220,000.

For comparison, assume everyone on the project is a salaried employee. Again, we’ll ignore additional management. This time, we’ll assume a fairly low cost per employee: around $75k per person per year, including overhead. With some liberal rounding, call that $1500 per week per employee. For 55 man weeks, that adds up to $82,500.

Based on those ballpark estimates, FarmVille’s launch was reasonably a 6 figure effort. The article doesn’t mention anything about the ongoing effort and team, but we know a lot of Zynga’s magic comes with analyzing user behavior and pushing frequent updates post-launch. I expect it has taken an additional 6 figures since launch. Zynga also has a notoriously huge marketing budget.

I run into a lot of companies who are looking for someone to make them a successful Facebook game for $25-30K. It may not be impossible, but if you are looking to replicate FarmVille on $30K, you have a seriously uphill battle. That said, I believe that low-cost software and games can win! It takes outside-the-box thinking and innovation. And don’t forget the ongoing budget.