further in their "freemium" games rather than treating gaming as an artistic experience. He also believed Zynga's vice president Bill Mooney was trying to attack "artistic" gaming during his acceptance speech for the award when he personally invited independent game developers to join his company. After the conference, Bogost coined the term "cow clickers" to describe games such as FarmVille which only involve performing tasks at certain intervals, since in these games, "you click on a cow, and that’s all you do." Bogost compared the players of Zynga's games to the rats in B. F. Skinner's operant conditioning experiment, often receiving variable reinforcement rather than regular rewards. As one of the most vocal critics of Zynga's practices and business model, Bogost made further appearances at various events and panels to discuss his views on social gaming. In July 2010, Bogost was scheduled to make an appearance at a New York University seminar, "Social Games On Trial", to discuss the controversial aspects of social network gaming. To clearly demonstrate what he felt were the most commonly abused mechanics of these games, Bogost quickly developed a Facebook game entitled Cow Clicker. The game was designed to be a satire of what Bogost personally believed were the only points of FarmVille: to encourage users to continue playing by inviting other users into the game, and to provide incentives for those who purchase virtual goods. The bulk of the code was written in three days. Cow Clicker is similar to the 2013 game Cookie Clicker by Julien Thiennot, which Ian Bogost describes as Cow Clicker "logical conclusion". Updates Unexpectedly to Bogost, Cow Clicker became a viral phenomenon, amassing over 50,000 players by September 2010. In response to its sudden popularity, he committed to improving the game with new features. Updates to the game added awards for reaching certain milestones (such as the Golden Cowbell for 100,000 clicks), the ability to earn Mooney by clicking on other users' Cow Clicker news feed posts, and the chance to randomly gain or lose Mooney on every click. New cow designs were also introduced, such as an oil-coated cow to commemorate the BP oil spill, and the "Stargrazer Cow", which was only a mirror image of the original cow that cost around $20's worth of Mooney. Although continually disturbed by its popularity, Bogost also used Cow Clicker to parody other recent gaming and social networking trends; such as