Have you tried the “hide” function for the games? “Hover” the mouse over the upper right corner of the game announcement, and you’ll see “Hide”. Once you click on it, you’ll get the option to hide the game, hide the person, or cancel. Once you hide the game, no more updates! Has to be done for each game, though.
I did that LONG ago. I am talking about when someone makes a FarmVille photo album and tags friends, or actually types a status message about FarmVille. I wish I could block the very word.
I guarantee you at least 95% of the people playing that game have never grown an actual vegetable in their life. That is one of the things that makes the game so annoying to me.