Inside Social Games

This Friday’s AppData list of top emerging Facebook games doesn’t have any new “graduates” to report — none of the games from last week’s list have yet passed a million users, the point at which we kick them off (and call them successful). However, there’s a solid set of growers that have returned, along with a couple potential new breakouts in Gangster City and Little Warrior.

To help spot the steady growers, about half of the games, we’ve colored them a brighter green:

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain, %
1.	Gangster City	459,799	+454,127	+98.77
2.	Little Warrior	687,761	+291,986	+42.45
3.	開心寶貝	991,633	+282,715	+28.51
4.	Band of Heroes	872,653	+130,145	+14.91
5.	Rummy Royal	199,376	+96,652	+48.48
6.	Frosmo	350,365	+90,242	+25.76
7.	MiniPlanet	336,934	+84,211	+24.99
8.	Sanalika	287,842	+73,274	+25.46
9.	IQ Test	463,531	+72,488	+15.64
10.	Spot The Difference	486,413	+63,810	+13.12
11.	Ninja Warz	802,095	+61,225	+7.63
12.	Temple of Mahjong 2	433,727	+59,389	+13.69
13.	Poll	955,345	+53,956	+5.65
14.	Little Rock Pool	451,568	+53,412	+11.83
15.	The True Age Test	562,703	+49,772	+8.85
16.	Flowers for Friends	402,451	+49,402	+12.28
17.	Dress Me Up	400,511	+47,805	+11.94
18.	Xx..Me 2 u bears..xX	281,162	+46,835	+16.66
19.	COLLAPSE!	877,523	+41,786	+4.76
20.	Bingo World	314,374	+41,169	+13.10

Is Gangster City, by Playfish, just another Mafia Wars clone? Not exactly: there are cut-scenes, music, a detailed story and other new aspects. We noted the game’s high level of polish when it launched, and it seems that players are responding well so far.

Next up is Little Warrior, a sort of rudimentary fighting game a bit like My Brute or the newly-released Killer Toon. The game has languished for some time, but got quite the bump in users over the past week, as you can see below.

開心寶貝 and Band of Heroes, the number three and four games, are both about ready to grow out of this list. There’s one big difference between them, though — the users of the former game are highly engaged, with about 39 percent of users returning, while Band of Heroes has low user engagement, suggesting that it may not be a lasting success.

Finishing off the top five, Rummy Royal is just what it sounds like: a way to play the Rummy card game on Facebook. Users seem to enjoy traditional games lately; there are two more just on this list, Temple of Mahjong 2 and Bingo World.