Farmville was a great social game and their Words with Friends acquisition was very good... then they started making Farmville clones, blatantly ripping off competitor's games, and paid $200 million for Draw Something.
Happy Farm was legitimately a social game - even further than Farmville ended up being. In fact, almost two thirds of the Chinese population that played admitted they did so only so they could steal crops from their friends.
It's almost a case study into the Chinese culture unto itself.
What disappoints me about the current social gaming genre is how many games what would have otherwise been decent tycoons are ruined with slot machine mechanics.
You're the first person I've "met" who got SimIsle. Maybe I need to give it another try...