I’ve been distracted by Fishville lately, but the Zynga team has been busy rolling out new dishes for Café World, so I thought it was time for a new post on Café World Economics.
This post is the third in the Café World Economics series:
But before I get to the new tables, I did some additional analysis based on my popular Farmville post, “The Personal Economics of Farmville“. I’ve produced a table that ranks all the Café World dishes based on the equivalent US $ / hour wage you are valuing your real world time when you play the game.
In order to do this, I needed to find some additional data. The first was an effective value of Café World coins. To do this, I used the payment schedule that Zynga has in the game (as of 11/30/2009):
| Café Coins | Price ($) | Coins / $ |
| 15280 | $4.99 | 3062.12 |
| 45240 | $9.99 | 4528.53 |
| 125280 | $19.99 | 6267.13 |
| 333300 | $49.99 | 6667.33 |
| 1000000 | $149.99 | 6667.11 |
Note the wide disparity in values! If you pay the bare minimum ($4.99), you are valuing Café World coins at 3062.12 per dollar. But if you pay at the high end ($49.99), you get 6667.33 coins per dollar.
Since there is such a wide disparity of values, I decided to calculate both a high and a low estimate for my table.
The second new piece of data needed was the “time spent per dish“. This is something that I left out of my initial calculations, but makes sense in this context.
Since all of my tables are “per dish per stove per day”, I estimated that you need to spend one (1) minute per cycle to clean the stove, buy the dish, and click through the 3 ingredients, and then get the finished dish. This might be a tad high, but it’s in the right ballpark.
What this means is that a dish that takes 5 minutes to cook is now estimated to have a cycle time of 6 minutes, with 1 minute of “real world time” spent. So, 1440 / 6 = 240, which means to cook a 5 minute dish all day you’d need to cook 240 cycles, which implies a sign up for 240 minutes of “real world time”.
This allowed me to do the simple algebra to weigh the profit per dish per day, in Café World coins, and then subtract the real world time, and figure out the effective “hourly wage” of each dish.
As it turns out, whether you use the high value or low value for coins, the sort order is the same. Here are all Café World dishes, sorted by “hourly wage”:
| Dish | Hourly Wage (high) | Hourly Wage (low) |
| Impossible Quiche | $199.57 | $91.66 |
| Chicken Pot Pie | $148.62 | $68.26 |
| King Crab Bisque | $105.22 | $48.33 |
| Grand Tandoori Chicken | $78.08 | $35.86 |
| Homestyle Pot Roast | $77.10 | $35.41 |
| Herbed Halibut | $74.16 | $34.06 |
| Delicious Chocolate Cake | $67.31 | $30.91 |
| Overstuffed Peppers | $58.49 | $26.86 |
| Savory Stuffed Turkey | $56.53 | $25.96 |
| Crackling Peking Duck | $52.61 | $24.16 |
| Spitfire Roasted Chicken | $50.65 | $23.26 |
| Voodoo Chicken Salad | $38.40 | $17.64 |
| Lavish Lamb Curry | $34.98 | $16.06 |
| Vampire Staked Steak | $33.21 | $15.25 |
| Tostada de Carne Asada | $29.10 | $13.36 |
| Shu Mai Dumplings | $26.55 | $12.19 |
| Triple Berry Cheesecake | $24.20 | $11.11 |
| Kung Pao Stir Fry | $19.30 | $8.86 |
| Spaghetti and Meatballs | $17.83 | $8.19 |
| Tony’s Classic Pizza | $17.34 | $7.96 |
| Pumpkin Pie | $16.56 | $7.60 |
| Atomic Buffalo Wings | $11.66 | $5.35 |
| Fiery Fish Tacos | $9.60 | $4.41 |
| French Onion Soup | $8.33 | $3.82 |
| Caramel Apples | $3.82 | $1.75 |
| Buttermilk Pancakes | $2.65 | $1.21 |
| Tikka Masala Kabobs | $2.55 | $1.17 |
| Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail | $1.33 | $0.61 |
| Powdered French Toast | $1.31 | $0.60 |
| Super Chunk Fruit Salad | $0.98 | $0.45 |
| Chicken Gyro and Fries | $0.55 | $0.25 |
| Bacon Cheeseburger | $0.43 | $0.20 |
| Chips and Guacamole | $0.22 | $0.10 |
Now, these figures are a little misleading, because the dishes that result in high profit (like the Impossible Quiche) and that have long cycle times result in very low amounts of real world time. As a result, if you can make $2 in a minute, you effectively get $120/hour. Still, it makes a point. If you are trying to minimize time spent in Café World for maximum profit, this is a pretty good list to go by.
First thing you’ll notice, is that Chips & Guacamole may build your Café World coin stash, but they are not valuing your time very highly. In fact, you have to get to Kung Pao Stir Fry to break above the living wage in California, at the low valuation for coins.
However, it also shows that the economics of these coin values are unsustainable. If Zynga allowed people to convert coins to US $ at these rates, then the value of opening up 50 Facebook accounts and cooking Impossible Quiche all day would beat most jobs. ($200/hour = approx $400K per year!)
Just one of the interesting things you find when you crunch the numbers.
For those of you looking for updated tables with the new dishes, see below.
Café World dishes, sorted by profit per dish per day:
| Dish | Profit / Day | Profit / Hour | Min Per Cycle |
| Bacon Cheeseburger | 6336.0 | 264.0 | 5.0 |
| Overstuffed Peppers | 5970.0 | 248.8 | 720.0 |
| Kung Pao Stir Fry | 5910.0 | 246.3 | 240.0 |
| Delicious Chocolate Cake | 5888.6 | 245.4 | 840.0 |
| Fiery Fish Tacos | 5880.0 | 245.0 | 120.0 |
| Shu Mai Dumplings | 5420.0 | 225.8 | 360.0 |
| King Crab Bisque | 5370.0 | 223.8 | 1440.0 |
| Lavish Lamb Curry | 5355.0 | 223.1 | 480.0 |
| Chips and Guacamole | 5280.0 | 220.0 | 3.0 |
| Impossible Quiche | 5092.5 | 212.2 | 2880.0 |
| Powdered French Toast | 4824.0 | 201.0 | 20.0 |
| Super Chunk Fruit Salad | 4800.0 | 200.0 | 15.0 |
| Atomic Buffalo Wings | 4760.0 | 198.3 | 180.0 |
| Tostada de Carne Asada | 4455.0 | 185.6 | 480.0 |
| Buttermilk Pancakes | 4320.0 | 180.0 | 45.0 |
| Tony’s Classic Pizza | 4248.0 | 177.0 | 300.0 |
| Chicken Gyro and Fries | 4032.0 | 168.0 | 10.0 |
| Grand Tandoori Chicken | 3985.0 | 166.0 | 1440.0 |
| Voodoo Chicken Salad | 3920.0 | 163.3 | 720.0 |
| Chicken Pot Pie | 3792.5 | 158.0 | 2880.0 |
| Herbed Halibut | 3785.0 | 157.7 | 1440.0 |
| Crackling Peking Duck | 3580.0 | 149.2 | 1080.0 |
| Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail | 3264.0 | 136.0 | 30.0 |
| Savory Stuffed Turkey | 3147.3 | 131.1 | 1320.0 |
| Tikka Masala Kabobs | 3120.0 | 130.0 | 60.0 |
| Spaghetti and Meatballs | 2730.0 | 113.8 | 480.0 |
| Spitfire Roasted Chicken | 2585.0 | 107.7 | 1440.0 |
| French Onion Soup | 2550.0 | 106.3 | 240.0 |
| Triple Berry Cheesecake | 2470.0 | 102.9 | 720.0 |
| Caramel Apples | 2340.0 | 97.5 | 120.0 |
| Homestyle Pot Roast | 1967.5 | 82.0 | 2880.0 |
| Vampire Staked Steak | 1695.0 | 70.6 | 1440.0 |
| Pumpkin Pie | 1690.0 | 70.4 | 720.0 |
Café World dishes, sorted by Café World points per dish per day:
| Dish | CP / Day | CP / Hour | Min Per Cycle |
| Bacon Cheeseburger | 2016.0 | 84.0 | 5.0 |
| Chicken Gyro and Fries | 2016.0 | 84.0 | 10.0 |
| Chips and Guacamole | 1920.0 | 80.0 | 3.0 |
| Powdered French Toast | 1512.0 | 63.0 | 20.0 |
| Super Chunk Fruit Salad | 1344.0 | 56.0 | 15.0 |
| Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail | 1008.0 | 42.0 | 30.0 |
| Buttermilk Pancakes | 992.0 | 41.3 | 45.0 |
| Shu Mai Dumplings | 624.0 | 26.0 | 360.0 |
| Lavish Lamb Curry | 600.0 | 25.0 | 480.0 |
| Fiery Fish Tacos | 588.0 | 24.5 | 120.0 |
| Atomic Buffalo Wings | 544.0 | 22.7 | 180.0 |
| Tikka Masala Kabobs | 528.0 | 22.0 | 60.0 |
| Delicious Chocolate Cake | 468.0 | 19.5 | 840.0 |
| Kung Pao Stir Fry | 450.0 | 18.8 | 240.0 |
| Savory Stuffed Turkey | 439.6 | 18.3 | 1320.0 |
| Caramel Apples | 420.0 | 17.5 | 120.0 |
| Overstuffed Peppers | 412.0 | 17.2 | 720.0 |
| Grand Tandoori Chicken | 403.0 | 16.8 | 1440.0 |
| Tostada de Carne Asada | 369.0 | 15.4 | 480.0 |
| French Onion Soup | 366.0 | 15.3 | 240.0 |
| Voodoo Chicken Salad | 336.0 | 14.0 | 720.0 |
| Tony’s Classic Pizza | 326.4 | 13.6 | 300.0 |
| Spaghetti and Meatballs | 300.0 | 12.5 | 480.0 |
| Triple Berry Cheesecake | 280.0 | 11.7 | 720.0 |
| King Crab Bisque | 252.0 | 10.5 | 1440.0 |
| Herbed Halibut | 225.0 | 9.4 | 1440.0 |
| Crackling Peking Duck | 221.3 | 9.2 | 1080.0 |
| Spitfire Roasted Chicken | 210.0 | 8.8 | 1440.0 |
| Impossible Quiche | 175.5 | 7.3 | 2880.0 |
| Chicken Pot Pie | 153.5 | 6.4 | 2880.0 |
| Pumpkin Pie | 152.0 | 6.3 | 720.0 |
| Homestyle Pot Roast | 139.5 | 5.8 | 2880.0 |
| Vampire Staked Steak | 113.0 | 4.7 | 1440.0 |
Enjoy.
Update: I’ve now published updated information on Cafe World Economics.
Psychohistory 
Thanks, but I’ve grown board of the game and have quit playing. good luck to you all and thanks for your help and input! it really helped me advance!
very interesting article. good analysis. I think most of these game economies seem to unsustainable. they’re just interested in making as much money as possible, and they can print unlimited money AND make unlimited ‘goods’ in the game, so they don’t think about it much. I’d love to play a game where the economy was regulated and based on fixed resources.
hi Adam,
Turkey is back to 22 hours to cook – your calculations are based on the 11 hours time.
regards,
Anne
Please see my updated post (2010 Edition) for up-to-date information on all dishes, including Turkey.
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