Farmville Nation

So every February in New York City a wonderful trade show is held.  It is called Toy Fair, and its where deals are announced, and the years planned toy released are previewed for toy collectors and businesses a like.  Since I'm a bit of a dorky fella, I kinda really really enjoy the reveals that Toy Fair brings.  I think my favorite piece of news that showed up this time was:

Hasbro, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAS) and Zynga (NASDAQ: ZNGA) announced today a comprehensive partnership that grants Hasbro the rights to develop a wide range of toy and gaming experiences based across Zynga's popular social games and brands. As the world’s largest social game developer with more than 227 million monthly active users, Zynga has created some of the world’s most popular social game brands including FarmVille, CityVille and Words With Friends.

Through this agreement, Hasbro has obtained the license to develop and distribute wide ranging product lines based on Zynga’s game brands in a number of toy and game categories. This deal also creates an array of opportunities for co-branded merchandise featuring a combination of both Hasbro and Zynga brands.

“It’s exciting to partner with Hasbro as we share a common vision for play and a mission to connect the world through games,” said Mark Pincus, founder, CEO and chief product officer of Zynga. “This partnership is so special because it represents an exciting leap forward in enabling people to connect their virtual and real worlds. Hasbro has inspired play through their famous toys, games and action figures and we look forward to working with a company that continually creates meaningful and fun brands.”

“Hasbro is thrilled to have the opportunity to bring Zynga’s immensely popular social games to life in a variety of creative and new expressions that reflect consumers’ growing desire to surround themselves with gaming brands they love anytime, anywhere together with their friends and family,” said Brian Goldner, President and CEO of Hasbro. “Zynga is bringing more games to mainstream culture and is redefining how people play. At Hasbro, we’re proud to help bring their games to even more people around the world. This strategic alliance plays off of both Hasbro’s and Zynga’s proven strengths and is emblematic of the new innovations and new platforms we are creating across our entire gaming portfolio.”

The two companies expect the first products to be available beginning Fall 2012.

Basically It sure sounds like we are gonna get some actual Farmville Toys.  The thought of having a Cow of Brown for Roadblock to ride into battle upon, is almost too much.  (And by Roadblock I mean the Rhyming Chef Marvin F. Hinton from Biloxi Mississippi, not Dwayne Johnson) 

The other side of the coin, we could easily see Hasbro Products showing up in the Various Zynga Games.  Could we See My Little Pony Ponies Showing up in Farmville?  I'd not be shocked to see it.  Sonic Rainboom.

I would also not be surprised to see the Hasbro Products, whatever they may be, include some code to redeem for something neat in the game.  Or not neat and semi lame. 

I would love to see actual items look exactly like the items in the game, I was a bit disappointed in the Plush not looking like their ingame counterparts, but this could be amazing, I would enjoy the ability to build a little plastic version of my farm, for my desk I do not have at the moment.  I likely WOULD get a desk to sit at and write about Farmville, if I could put a toy version of my farm on it.

I do not expect to see the turtles in toy form though.

So what do You think?  Would you buy little plastic representations of Farmville Items if they released them?  Would you buy a Farmville board game if that was released?  (Imagine how much fun, if you were losing, you could knock the board of the table and claim it was an OOS)  Or is Zynga about 2 years late to the party on this?  Or would you never have spent your cash on Farmville stuffs?