April Decline for Top Facebook Games

May 5, 2010

A report from Inside Social Games shows that Facebook games saw big drops in monthly active users (MAU's) in the month of April. According to the monthly report 18 of the top 25 Facebook games saw a decline in visitors for the month. Some of this may be attributable to changes in the way apps notify players and general Facebook performance issues.

Running down the list, Zynga's Farmville - which still remained the top game on Facebook saw a decline of 4.4 monthly active users; Rock You's Birthday Cards fell 5.5 million; Zynga's Cafe World dropped 2.6 million; and Mafia Wars dropped 1.4 million. The only bright spots in the top 5 were Zynga Poker, which gained 100,00 users in April and Zynga's Treasure Isle which gained 2.2 million monthly active users.

It's hard, as an outsider, to gauge why some users are leaving these games but it is a cause for concern if you are a social game developer. Perhaps a lack of innovation and the me-too design of these games are wearing thin on Facebook users; maybe the recent changes to Facebook coupled with technical issues had something to do with it; or maybe the weather is getting warmer and people are simply going outside to do real work in the garden..

Source: MTV Multiplayer via The Escapist

Posted in Facebook

Comments

Re: April Decline for Top Facebook Games

Submitted by SeanB on Thu, 05/06/2010 - 13:02.

it was during april that my wife cut back her social gaming. She's now just playing 1, where she was previously playing.... all of them i think.

Re: April Decline for Top Facebook Games

Submitted by Mariner on Thu, 05/06/2010 - 11:40.

As a former player of Farmville and Treasure Isle, I quit playing them because of lag while playing. Too often did I get out of sync with the server so I just stopped playing. It's all those damn new players that ruined it for us vets. I guess the technical issues and the way FB notifies you had something to do with it as well.

Re: April Decline for Top Facebook Games

Submitted by Neeneko on Thu, 05/06/2010 - 11:31.

Ahm, April is when a lot of colleges wrap up the semester. Many students have a simple re-prioritization going on as they finish up final projects and papers.

The massive technical issues with Facebook are also a significant aggravating feature. Many games were inaccessible or running with degraded accessibility for weeks, which tends to result in loss of players.

Re: April Decline for Top Facebook Games

Submitted by black manta on Thu, 05/06/2010 - 09:52.

I think the bloom is off the rose of Facebook gaming now.

Re: April Decline for Top Facebook Games

Submitted by Parallax Abstraction on Wed, 05/05/2010 - 20:19.

I look forward to the day when those of us who believe Facebook gaming is a fad that will never sustain its stellar numbers and who have been constantly shouted down as "old farts who don't get the future" will be proven right. I think this month is the start of that.

Parallax Abstraction
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
blog.digital-lifeline.ca

Parallax Abstraction
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Re: April Decline for Top Facebook Games

Submitted by AgentFade2Black on Wed, 05/05/2010 - 18:02.

Makes sense to me.

They become so much of a grind that it gets boring.

(From someone who plays Zynga Poker and used to play Mafia Wars/Vampire Wars)

Shout box

DorthLous: Passed 1.5M$. And I'd also say that Brutal Legend is far from being a bad game. I just think it was a few levels under what people expected from the people working on the project.02/11/2012 - 8:25am

Technogeek: Brutal Legend wasn't bad so much as "marketing had no idea how the game actually played", causing it to suffer accordingly.02/10/2012 - 10:38pm

RedMage: It looks the CIA's website has been DDOS'ed. Anon?02/10/2012 - 7:52pm

RedMage: Brutal Legend.02/10/2012 - 7:52pm

ddrfr33k: Has anything Tim Schafer ever made been of crap caliber? I'm struggling to think of one...02/10/2012 - 7:37pm

Guamish: I think it is in good hands. Tim did a game for the GDC award show and that was fun for how short it was.02/10/2012 - 12:22pm

Andrew Eisen: It'll be tragic if the game ultimately sucks.02/10/2012 - 12:17pm

james_fudge: $1.3 million02/10/2012 - 11:32am

Uncharted NES: Germany Says It Won't Sign ACTA [Update: ... Yet]- http://tinyurl.com/7r2twrg02/10/2012 - 11:21am

Andrew Eisen: Damn. Double Fine's Kickstarter fund has already passed a million dollars.02/09/2012 - 8:16pm

Andrew Eisen: Audrey didn't quote the sassy parts. Here's IGN's article: http://wii.ign.com/articles/121/1218359p1.html And here's my original post: http://tinyurl.com/7y68a3902/09/2012 - 7:50pm

james_fudge: I hope you some said something sassy! Where's the link?02/09/2012 - 7:46pm

Andrew Eisen: Hey, neat. IGN quoted a blog I had writen only two hours earlier. I certainly timed that one pretty well.02/09/2012 - 7:38pm

Andrew Eisen: Toki Tori has been added to the Humble Bundle for Android.02/09/2012 - 5:11pm

james_fudge: Thanks for the heads-up DorthLous02/09/2012 - 4:33pm

DorthLous: Will do, my apologies.02/09/2012 - 4:14pm

Andrew Eisen: I appreciate the heads up but please keep typo alerts to the specific article's comments or PMs.02/09/2012 - 3:33pm

DorthLous: The title says 30, but in the article, the developer says it's like a 20% net tax http://www.gamepolitics.com/2012/02/09/developers-call-facebook-currency-transaction-fee-thirty-percent-tax02/09/2012 - 2:43pm

Uncharted NES: If they actually release Final Fantasy XI for PlayStation Vita, then I will consider buying one.02/09/2012 - 12:13pm

Uncharted NES: Customers Petition Apple to End Worker Abuse with 250,000 signatures- http://tinyurl.com/6vpuom202/09/2012 - 11:28am

All shouts

<< Return To Top

Forgot your password?
Username :
Password :