Inside Social Games

Welcome back to our Wednesday list of top gaining Facebook games by growth in their daily active users (DAU), pulled from AppData. This week shows some impressive gains for apps both old and new, but they should be taken with a grain of salt; Facebook failed to update its stats several days last week, leading to some potential inconsistencies.

FarmVille, for instance, is showing a 13 percent rise to almost 32 million DAU — a bigger bump than it has enjoyed for several months. Yet some of its gain could come down to the monthly average user numbers freezing for several days before being updated today; brand-new MAUs are briefly interpreted as DAUs.

But most of the apps are on even playing ground with their reporting problems, so the list as a whole is generally accurate. Take a look:

	Name	DAU	Gain	Gain, %
1.	FarmVille	31,937,622	+4,278,734	+13.40
2.	Birthday Cards	2,972,808	+971,030	+32.66
3.	Zoo World	2,660,560	+492,826	+18.52
4.	Pet Society	4,198,261	+310,074	+7.39
5.	My City Life	350,224	+148,321	+42.35
6.	PetVille	4,817,157	+139,421	+2.89
7.	Ninja Saga	518,494	+137,761	+26.57
8.	My Town	623,667	+136,871	+21.95
9.	Happy Aquarium	5,963,706	+124,174	+2.08
10.	MindJolt Games	2,618,767	+105,563	+4.03
11.	Restaurant City	3,359,280	+85,531	+2.55
12.	Medical Mayhem	280,339	+64,160	+22.89
13.	Texas HoldEm Poker	5,721,721	+55,796	+0.98
14.	SPP Ranch!	93,481	+54,666	+58.48
15.	開心水族箱	1,764,422	+53,191	+3.01
16.	(Lil) Farm Life	1,050,736	+51,988	+4.95
17.	Fish World	1,255,007	+43,368	+3.46
18.	Vampire Wars	632,291	+37,968	+6.00
19.	Okey	488,593	+34,615	+7.08
20.	UNO™	294,813	+33,131	+11.24

Returning briefly to FarmVille, the game’s path to virtual agricultural domination is continuing apace. Zynga announced late last week that it will take Farmville to MSN’s half-billion users, and the game is going all-out for Valentine’s day with a roughly $40 “Unwither Ring” that simultaneously shows love and keeps crops from ever withering. Two ways to look at that: one is that it’s ridiculously expensive, the second is that it’s only a matter of time until virtual goods start substituting as engagement rings.

Birthday Cards and Zoo World, both from RockYou, take the second and third spot, but there’s no indication yet that their DAU gains are going to last.

The rest of the list offers a couple of good synergies. First there’s Pet Society and Petville, respectively from Electronic Arts and Zynga. Both are posting relatively minor gains, but there’s always the possibility that a feedback loop is taking place — perhaps some players really love playing pet-caring games, and are discovering and using both apps?

My City Life and My Town are where the real action is. These sim town games are growing rapidly, and at least in the case of My Town, have been for some time. What’s interesting is that this is a category that big developers by and large haven’t gotten into yet; but if strong growth continues for the smaller developers making these games, chances are that won’t be the case for long.