Mafia Wars Godfather Points – How to Use Them and Get Your Hands on More

Mafia Wars Godfather points are how players get limited edition items and equipment in the game. They are also the way that Zynga monetizes Mafia Wars. Hey that’s not all bad, a company has to make a living somehow. At least you aren’t paying a monthly fee to play Mafia Wars.

Last time I wrote about the seedier side of Mafia Wars reward points and how not to get them. This time I am going to let you in on how you can actually get them without opening up your email to sales pitches or your computer to possible threats.

Mafia Wars Godfather points are the means that players use to purchase special items and obtain favors from the Godfather himself. These points are earned naturally throughout the game by leveling a character and sometimes with achievements.

Points awarded through leveling come one every 2 levels and the things that you can do with these points is varied. Below you will find a list of the favors that the Godfather will bestow upon, along with my thoughts on each.

Cost Varies – Limited Time Offers including weapons, armor, and vehicles

Some of these items are pretty nice, but with Godfather points being so hard to come by they are hardly worth it.

20 points – 1 Unknown Crate
55 Points – 3 Unknown Crates

To be totally honest I have never seen anything come out of a crate that was better than random loot items that you can get just by doing jobs. Purchasing them is a total waste of Godfather points in my opinion.

10 Points – A variable amount of money

A tempting option at lower levels but resist the urge. Money is too easy to come by in Mafia Wars.

20 Points – 4 Extra Family Members

Once again useless. You can build a mafia of thousands in a few days.

10 Points – Full Energy Refill

Learn how to manage your energy and you will never need this favor.

10 Points – Full Stamina Refill

Stamina might be a necessity for the bounty hunter types but for the rest of us there are better uses for 10 points.

10 Points – Full Health Refill

Use the hospital, it’s easier to earn money than points.

15 Points – New Name

This might be an attractive option for those who have made more than a few enemies in the game. You know the type; they rob the same player 10 times in a row, mercilessly attack someone who is not on the hitlist, and are just a general pain in the ass.

14 Points – 4 Skill Upgrade Points

In my opinion this is the ONLY thing that you should be spending your Mafia Wars Godfather points on, and even then only for more energy.

Like I have already shown, the process of acquiring more points can be an agonizingly slow process, but there are other ways to get them.

1.) Buy them from Zynga.

The cost breakdown goes like this.

21 points – $5.00
42 points – $10.00
85 points – $20.00
215 points – $50.00
700 points – $150.00

Zynga has to make a profit somehow and the prices are pretty fair. If you have the cash this can be a quick fix option.

2.) Complete Offers

Zynga uses the offer model to monetize their products. The offers can bring in a large number of points very quickly. The offer point rewards range from just a few points for free offers through over 1,000 points for some of the higher priced ones.

Some of the offers are pretty good and if you are in the market for them anyway why not use them to further your criminal exploits in Mafia Wars. One offer that can pack on the points and be coupled with a real world savings is the DirecTV offer. The reward from Mafia Wars is 1,020 Godfather points and I believe that DirecTV is currently offering $100 off your bill if you join under a current subscriber.

Here is fairly painless strategy to get points through offers.

1.) Set up a junk email address – You will need it to handles the sales email that you will get.

2.) Pick some offers that are either free or if you want more points ones that offer free trials.

3.) Sign up for the offers

4.) Get your Mafia Wars Godfather points.

5.) Remember to cancel any trial offers that you don’t want BEFORE the trial period ends.

Mafia Wars Godfather points are the way that Zynga earns money with Mafia Wars and are very useful to players. There are many things that you can do with them but in my opinion the only truly useful thing is to up your energy. Getting them is slow but with some creative wrangling you can earn more by taking advantage of offers that award points. Once again…don’t forget to cancel trial offers that you do not want.

Free Godfather Points – The Myth Exposed

Mafia Wars is one of the largest and most popular free to play games on the internet right now. Millions of players swarm the Zynga servers each day from Facebook, Myspace, and other social networks.

One of the things that inevitably occur when massive amounts of people start playing a game is the arrival of hackers, spammers, and plain old shysters. Mafia Wars is no exception to this. Everyday we are bombarded with email, instant messages, and group suggestions to groups or sites that offer free Godfather points.

Like any player eventually my curiosity got the better of me and I joined a group that touted “200 Free Godfather Points.” After taking a very close look at their offer it became quite clear to me that not only would I NOT get any free Godfather points, I may be opening up myself to a barrage of spam at the very least and perhaps a keylogger or other malicious software invasion.

These groups basically all work the same but with a few twists. I will give you the details and explain the systems.

Most of the groups all begin with a powerful name that will entice the average player into joining. They will then list the steps for you.

1.) Join the Group

2.) Click on “Invite People to Join”

3.) Select all of your friends

4.) Click on “Send Invitation”

5.) See Below for this step.

The final step is where the groups vary.

Some will ask you to visit a site that is outside of your social network. BEWARE of these! When visiting a site outside the network you are leaving the safety of a controlled environment and entering a realm where your computer may be infected with a virus, malware, keyloggers, or other dangerous software.

Others will state that if you give them your email and Paypal address they will pay you up to $1 in real world currency for each member that you recommend and they accept. I have worked in internet marketing and I can tell you the trap that is being set here. You are going to hand over your Paypal email address and/or your personal email address.

This opens you up to a couple of things. Paypal is secure and it is highly unlikely that they can access your account, but you will begin to be hit with massive amounts of spam. Why? The entire goal of this type of group was to get your email address in the first place. You my friend are a very highly targeted lead for marketers. The email addresses that they gather are sold off to list builders for some pretty hefty money. Your email address as a targeted prospect is worth $5 – $10 to the person selling it. Now think about the groups like this that have hundreds of thousands of members……BIG MONEY.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with joining a newsletter or forum for your favorite games because the people who run those are a very good bunch. I have worked with many of them over the years and they are a very professional and trustworthy crowd. The ones you have to watch out for are those that

The offer of free Godfather points sounds too good to be true because it is exactly that. Godfather points are how Zynga makes money so they guard them very closely. The chances that anyone can “give” them to you is slim and none. Honestly if you believe in free Godfather points you must believe in Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny as well.

Mafia Wars Energy Management Made Easy

Mafia Wars is undoubtedly one of the most popular games on many of the social networks including Facebook, Myspace, Tagged, Yahoo, and even the iPhone. Zynga boasts of over 5 million players daily. Out of those 5 million plus players most of them have one thing in common. They do not know how to manage their energy for maximum efficiency.

Energy is the lifeblood of every Mafia Wars character regardless of type. Without energy you simply cannot level quickly. Many players have trouble managing their energy pool and spend more time waiting for energy to replenish than they do playing.

When you first start working your way through the tiers you will find that getting them completed up to level three can be difficult. With effective energy management you will be able to level much more quickly and thus you will spend more time playing and less waiting.

Here is some great advice on effectively making use of the energy that you have.

Use An Energy Calculator

There are a number of them out there and they can be found by searching Google for “Mafia Wars tools” or something similar. Energy calculators are handy little javascript applets.

Energy calculators will display the experience provided by each job in a form such as 1.5, 1.8, 2.0, etc. as well as tell you what average number you need to level. You can find it right beside your blue starred experience bar at the top right of the screen. If the number beside the word “experience” says 1.235 for example, you will need to complete jobs to average at that number to level.

One great advantage of an energy calculator is that you can click the button at any time during your leveling to see exactly what you need in order to level. This way you can intermix higher value jobs with lower ones to farm the necessary consumable items such as blackmail photos, untraceable cell phones, illegal transaction records, and more. This will ensure that you maximize your ability to level while getting the hundreds of consumable items that you need.

There are many handy little gadgets that you can use in Mafia Wars. There is a gadget for just about everything that you can think of. Some of them help with property by purchasing as many Mafia Mike’s as you can with the click of a button, others add mafia members quickly and easily. Those are all very nice and help save time but my vote for the best type of gadget is the energy calculator.

At lower levels and easier tiers you can do the math in your head but believe me when you get to the higher levels you will need some automation. My advice is to start out from day one using an energy calculator. It will make your life much easier and you will pull less hair out.