Today’s AppData list of the fastest-growing Facebook games by daily active users is all about City of Wonder, the new Playdom game referenced in this post’s headline. The city-building game has been leading both our monthly active user and DAU lists for a couple weeks now, and shows no sign of stopping yet.

However, the top 20 list shows a strong challenger:

	Name	DAU	Gain	Gain,%
1.	City of Wonder	1,031,022	+206,152	+25%
2.	The Price Is Right Game	253,605	+199,242	+367%
3.	Pet Society	2,677,253	+187,093	+8%
4.	Pirates Ahoy	754,747	+157,444	+26%
5.	Ninja Saga	1,008,422	+125,732	+14%
6.	snsplus	139,762	+110,615	+380%
7.	Bejeweled Blitz	4,305,236	+107,079	+3%
8.	MMA Pro Fighter	263,787	+95,277	+57%
9.	開心水族箱	1,426,889	+90,246	+7%
10.	Bubble Island	928,411	+81,097	+10%
11.	開心農場	1,338,251	+72,872	+6%
12.	Millionaire City	1,363,328	+68,633	+5%
13.	Sorority Life	618,456	+66,283	+12%
14.	Monster World	531,666	+63,956	+14%
15.	Café World	4,418,157	+59,880	+1%
16.	Wild Ones	626,627	+57,598	+10%
17.	快樂島主	210,266	+52,797	+34%
18.	Critter Island	62,058	+52,590	+555%
19.	Revienta el teclado	100,947	+49,088	+95%
20.	Cafe Life	449,374	+48,648	+12%

Coming in right behind City of Wonder is The Price Is Right Game, by Ludia. This game is based on the classic game show of the same name; we’ll have our review for it out later this morning.

Pet Society, Ninja Saga, Sorority Life and other older games on the list seem interesting at first, but they’re not doing anything new; larger old games often produce temporary changes in their stats over the period of a few days without ultimately growing or shrinking much.

The games that are worth looking at today are MMA Pro Fighter, from Digital Chocolate, and Bubble Island and Monster World from Wooga. These two mid-sized developers are both in the process of breaking into the top 10 developers by DAU with their slow-growing hits; Digital Chocolate is at number 10, while Wooga is close behind at number 11.

Social media monetization company gWallet is announcing a move into mobile apps this morning, with a new platform for smartphone developers to add offers and incentivized installs as methods for users to earn virtual currency.

GWallet got started well after most other offer companies, only taking $12.5 million in funding last December. That meant it was too late to become one of Facebook’s preferred offer partners, like Peanut Labs, so like other companies it needs to find business off the Facebook platform.

The pitch, as we noted in our coverage of the funding, is that gWallet can provide higher-quality offers than other companies, because it works directly with major brands. It was founded by Gurbaksh Chahal, who sold ad network BlueLithium to Yahoo in 2007 for some $300 million.

As part of the new platform, gWallet is entering a partnership with Mobclix, one of the larger mobile ad providers, to help reach more people.

[Editor's note: This is a guest post by Nicholas Talarico, former social games director at Sibblingz and director of publisher development at Offerpal Media. He is currently working on a stealthy social media & social gaming-focused company. The below article builds on an answer provided by Talarico on Quora.]

Social gaming companies have long been interested in monetizing international markets. While developing nations are part of that picture, they pose additional challenges and should be considered separate from developed markets, in which the quickest way to move the revenue dial is often to simply integrate the most adopted local online payment method.

While lack of adopted payment methods is an issue in the developing world, discretionary spending power is the key concern. To compensate for this, some developers have tried offering more favorable exchange rates for those locales. This exchange rate, based on the game’s existing rate, can be calculated with a simple formula that includes per capita GDP, internet penetration, and some guess work. This method poses significant economic risk, however, for two main reasons.

First, the increased currency source for that set of IPs will cause make economic measurement more difficult, because it becomes tough to separate this planned source from other, mismanaged sources. When game economies become difficult to measure, key revenue decisions are more difficult to make, which is detrimental or devastating in this fast-paced games-as-service environment.

The second – and probably more important – risk with altered exchange rates in developing countries is that some users from developed nations with higher spending power will invariably proxy into the IPs with favorable exchange rates for increased “earning” power. This may tilt the game’s economy out of control.

As a result, very few developers employ the tactic of favorable exchange rates in the developing world.

It is possible, however, to do this if the favorable exchange rate is tied to a method rather than to an IP. For example, if a user needs a Filipino cell phone to successfully complete a transaction for virtual currency, the game developer can more safely bet that said user isn’t proxying into a Filipino IP from Germany for a preferred exchange rate. I’ve begun testing this method with significant success and optimization to follow.

Game Localization, and Culturally-Relevant Content

While I was at Offerpal, a director of monetization for a top-5 social games firm remarked to me that rather than optimizing across payment providers or grinding for higher revshare, he discovered that strategic virtual merchandising and inventory management is more powerful to sustainably increase revenues. I was surprised that this was an epiphany, but many social game companies are still determining best practices when it comes to monetization.

As game developers and content managers, our most fundamental revenue responsibility is to maintain high demand for our virtual currencies. We can do this through diligent measurement of our economies and virtual inventories, as well as simply staying on top of consumer trends in the “real” world and applying them to our game commerce. We’ve seen this time and time again with holiday-themed virtual goods (think jack-o-lanterns in Barn Buddy or Fourth of July-themed items in Mafia Wars).

This should also be applied to developing nations, too, and can be IP-targeted. Christmas-themed goods, for example, play well in the US, but may not in India, where Diwali-themed goods may be better. Know your users, where they come from, what their likely behaviors will be, and what they like to do/buy. It might seem logical to get this information from Wikipedia or a book, but we’re talking about the smallest of cultural nuances; many of the top firms have opted to partner with people or companies from that specific culture.

Along with complete game localization, payments coverage (both direct payment and alternative payment) is essential to monetizing international markets and the developing world. Below, I explore various strategies for both direct pay and altpay.

AltPay Coverage

We all know that there are a number of qualified alternative payment platforms available through quick and free integration: Offerpal, Super Rewards, Gambit, Peanut Labs, TrialPay, Ultrawall, and more. We’re all tempted to test each of these against one another, and my mantra has always been to test everything and leverage competition for better treatment.

I have and probably will continue to test providers against one another. But I recommend doing so only with a UID-based AB test (for example: odd numbers see Ultrawall and even numbers see Gambit), and I always flip the buckets after a few days — a couple of whales can inaccurately tip the test. It has to be pointed out, however, that testing providers can be very bad for the industry.

Let’s say I’m a Lucky Train player and I prefer CPA offers as my means to acquire LuckyBucks. We’ll pretend that A Bit Lucky (Lucky Train’s developer) is ABing Offerpal against Super Rewards. I, as a user, first see Offerpal on Monday. I sign up for Netflix in exchange for 100 LuckyBucks. On Tuesday, I go back to Lucky Train’s ‘Points’ page and Offerpal is still the provider showing. I try to sign up for Netflix again, but Offerpal’s system knows I’ve already signed up for Netflix and won’t allow me to do so. Netflix avoids a bad lead and advertiser payout rates are preserved.

On Wednesday, however, I go to Lucky Train’s ‘Points’ page and, as part of their test, A Bit Lucky is now showing me Super Rewards. I click on Netflix and because Super Rewards doesn’t have the historical data that I’ve already completed this offer, I’m allowed to continue and earn my virtual currency. However, at month’s end, Netflix sees that this is a poor lead and issues chargebacks and scrubs rates. I, the user, got my virtual currency but somebody (Netflix, Super Rewards, or A Bit Lucky) isn’t going to get paid – and that’s usually passed down to the developer. It’s bad for the industry. We’re all part of this insane growth and we should protect it as such.

Here are some of the specific offer types:

CPA, CPI, CPV, etc.

CP_ (cost per: Action/Acquisition, Install, View) has become a proven method of alternative payments over the past 3 years, especially in the developed world where marketing budgets are focused and where online marketing is king. However, some CP_ offers are available for developing markets. CPI, specifically (when the paying action of an offer is the install of another game or app), is often available to all users, regardless of which country they come from. Payouts are typically low (due to poor quality installs), but CPI offers are free and easy for anyone, so the volume can make up for lower payouts.

Surveys

Surveys, like CP_ campaigns, have their largest budgets in the developed world. However, marketing for many products is growing in the developing world and corresponding market research is needed. Peanut Labs, the market leader in surveys, has increased its international (and developing world) survey reach in the past 6-12 months, which has helped their international monetization significantly. Surveys are free and are available to whoever they’re targeted (based on user demo data).

Tasks

Micro-tasks in exchange for virtual currency is a near-global monetization option, and I anticipate that as UIs and presentations improve, this method will become a more viable part of the virtual currency ecosystem. Gambit already partners with Crowdflower, and Offerpal has Mechanical Turk Tasks on its platform. That said, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done. Re-engagement and re-targeting by the micro-task companies is weak, and inventory is a big issue.

BringIt

A new player on the scene, BringIt acts as both a source and a sink in game economies. That means that users can both gain and lose virtual currency within the BringIt environment. The platform allows users to “bet” a game’s virtual currency on themed mini-games within the game frame. The product is yet to be fully localized or translated, but is free for users (it costs them virtual currency, which acts as the sink) and is available to anyone.

Direct Pay — Coverage and Optimization

As it relates to developing markets as well as overall international coverage, having all the right direct payment methods is key. Aside from payment platforms like Playspan, Allopass, and Moneybookers, the two leading altpay and direct pay monetization suites, Offerpal and Super Rewards, have a large number of direct payment methods to complement their altpay focus. Each supports over 100 international payment methods either through direct integration or through “deep links” from an aggregation partner. Many of these methods are promoted in developing countries.

What hasn’t yet been nailed, however, is historic targeting. It’s good to start a user off with all methods available to them for their country (altpay and direct pay). However, as time passes and transaction data accrues, users should be shown payment methods more strategically. Otherwise, clutter and distraction can become overwhelming, negatively impacting conversions.

As an example, consider an Italian user who has come to an app’s ‘Points’ page every three days for 3 months to buy or earn currency. Initially, the user did a few incented CPI offers (installing another app in exchange for the current app’s currency), then they began doing PayPal transactions routinely for the past 10 weeks. The user has clearly adopted their preferred payment mechanism. They no longer need to be shown all the other options. A collapsible UI that holds PayPal in a frame above a few simple offers would likely be the optimal scenario for improved conversions for this user and others in the same bucket.

Overall, users should be bucketed according to past behavior and more granular tests (price points, default package selection, etc.) should be run on each bucket. It’s work, but I’ve seen as much as 50 percent lift if this is done properly.

Mobile Coverage Doesn’t Mean Mobile Conversions

It’s no secret that mobile payments are the preferred, adopted form of payment in many international markets. The extent to which the mobile payment companies (Zong, Allopass, Boku) have gained international coverage in the past couple of years is staggering. It wasn’t long ago that US coverage was “coming soon.” However, coverage doesn’t lead to transactions if the UI isn’t right. Much of the time, users are unaware that they can pay via mobile (in their country). In other cases, users need a nudge that many of the payment companies aren’t successfully giving them. Over the past few months, I’ve experimented with various presentation strategies on this matter with very clear (and in some cases dramatic) increases in conversions and revenue.

Having the method is only part of the battle, and that goes for any method – not just mobile.

Summary

Discretionary spending power plus availability of locally-adopted payment methods equal increased transactions and revenue.

In countries where one, the other, or both don’t exist, developers should dig deeper and get creative for solutions. Having looked at the numbers backward, forward, and sideways for the past few years, this is easy for me to say. However, making the right moves often means real improvements in conversions and transaction sizes.

Overall, there’s a ton of opportunity to sustainably monetize international and developing markets, and if educated and committed, it can be a very profitable exercise.

With so many mobile games coming out every day, it’s just not possible to catch them all. Nevertheless, older apps can still turn up hidden gems, such as the turn-based, role-playing strategy title The Battle for Wesnoth HD. Available for both the iPhone and iPad, the open-source project ported to the iOS by Kyle Poole is easily one of the best $4.99 one can spend.

Similar to a previously reviewed application, Highborn HD, this strategy RPG takes a much more serious stance on its fantasy storytelling. With complex rules that are presented along a beautifully increasing difficulty curve, it’s a game that comes with a surprising amount of depth and breadth for an iPad title. Wrought with choice and tremendous amounts of strategy and tactics, the game only loses points in the form of some frustrating combat systems and somewhat weak failure mechanics.

Currently, Battle for Wesnoth is up to version 1.5, so there is a tremendous amount of content to be had. Just the single player alone has a dozen different campaigns, many of which have very different stories to them. From undead to orcs, players attempt to complete a set of objectives (usually getting to a certain part of the map or killing a certain enemy) in order to save the land of Wesnoth.

Players start out with one, or a handful (depending on the mission) of hero units. Scattered around the map are a number of keeps and camps, and from these, the lead hero can use gold to recruit or recall units (more on that later). Without getting into the vast depth behind each unit, they are classified by varying types of attributes, stats, special abilities, and attacks.

Every unit has different elements of these, and there are a metric ton of them. Attributes consist of passive bonuses such as intelligence (leveling up faster), quickness (greater movement), or resilience (more health), while stats are more basic in the form of damage, defenses, and movement speed. As for special abilities, they include stealth, healing, and regeneration. Like the attributes, there are a tremendous number of these as well.

Attacks are a little more trimmed, consisting of ranged or melee. Of course, the type of attack can, and will, affect the amount of damage one gives or receives, and different types of attacks have a greater or smaller chance of hitting entirely.

These chances are actually one of the more frustrating elements of combat for Wesnoth. Each unit has a percentage chance to avoid being struck. On average, a unit will try to hit the target three to four times (with stronger attacks swinging less). With that in mind, it’s entirely possible for the enemy unit to hit every attack while the player goes on missing streaks. For the most part, it’s a matter of luck, making it incredibly annoying to lose units in this way.

Houses also play a significant role as more than just defensive structures (as a side note, they also heal units stationed atop them). Every unit costs gold to upkeep, that takes away from revenue earnings, and depending on how many houses one has, the greater that income is each turn. Unless the user controls enough houses, they will be unable to summon or purchase new units.

In the campaign, earning gold is also critical, as it rolls over from mission to mission. However, choice plays a tremendous role here as well. This is the RPG aspect of the game, in that as units fight, they gain experience and level up. In many cases, this means more than just more health and damage, but gives the player an opportunity to often choose what type of unit they become — defensive, ranged/melee, caster, and so on. Couple this with in-game choices on how to best complete a mission (e.g. help one guy or the other), and one gains the ability to very drastically affect both game play and story.

Unfortunately, while Wesnoth’s unit leveling system is pretty cool, it’s also the source of another frustration. This is the fact that high-level units are almost a necessity in later levels. Should a user have enough houses to pay the upkeep (which increases for higher level units), these units can be recalled from previous missions. It helps, but the enemies in late missions are so dangerous that it becomes almost impossible to level up new ones. Along with the luck-based combat system this feature can become incredibly obnoxious.

From a social perspective, Battle for Wesnoth does quite well. Integrated with OpenFeint, the game comes with as many achievements as there are strategies, but the game also allows publishing of these to Facebook. Of course, this is still basic from a social perspective, so the game has a synchronous multiplayer mode that allows users to connect to one of the Wesnoth servers and join a game against other, live players. In fact, the community appears pretty active with the Wesnoth homepage allowing users to create their very own scenarios.

As a final note, the game has a means of downloading saved games on other devices via WesnothSync.com. There is even more longevity to the game in the form of a custom skirmish mode against computer opponents.

If you can overlook the iPhone version’s smaller screen size, Wesnoth marks one of the best $5 apps you can get for either device. It is a game that provides hours – not minutes like most mobile games — of game play, and most of it is done extremely well. Granted there are a few frustrations with luck, but for the most part, this is easily overlooked.

So the lesson here is two-fold: (1) Never forsake an older game. (2) You should probably buy Wesnoth.

[thrid image via TouchArcade]

The folks over at Fusion Creative Studios and BigVoice Unlimited have been trying to do something different with Facebook virtual space games. The name of their effort is Inheritance, a game that diverges from the normal route of building up a space of one’s own to give players a pre-packaged, full blown mansion. The catch is that the place is falling apart.

Beyond the modified virtual space idea, Inheritance also seems to revolve around the story of the dearly departed relative that left their home to the player. Filled with curious means of progression and income, the app’s exploration and discovery element plays a close second to the actual virtual space. That said, the game does suffer from a clunky micromanagement system, so despite its more interesting elements it has attracted only a handful of players so far.

When we Inheritance’s house is falling apart, we mean it is really falling apart. As soon as the game starts, the player is dropped into a single bedroom that is an absolute disaster of broken furniture, rusted metal, dirty floors, and virtually everything else one might find in Martha Stewart’s worst nightmares. The idea is to grow the home’s value back up to what it once was in its prime, and doing so consists of cleaning and decorating.

Truth be told, decoration takes a back seat to cleaning the three-dimensional space. Players can visit various stores and purchase a vast variety of furnishings that will not only sate the user’s own creative palette, but increase the value of the home itself. That said, it might be cheaper just to clean things up.

When starting the game, virtually every item in the bedroom must be fixed or cleaned. To do so, players purchase proper cleaning materials to fix it up. Upon dragging the corresponding tool or cleaner to the object, it will begin automatically fixing itself. Sometimes this takes a few minutes, and other times, a few hours. Of course, multiple items can be cleaned or fixed simultaneously, but only up to three.

Each task also takes a set amount of energy to accomplish, adding another limiting factor to the game. Even if users wanted to clean more than three items at a time, they usually cannot do much more than that anyway. In order to replenish energy, however, users can visit the kitchen and eat every couple of hours.

This leads us to the micromanagement system of Inheritance, and its major downside. The game attempts to make itself far too realistic, in that every single nuance and step from reality seems to play a role here. To eat, players must visit the kitchen, then drag food to the plate. To clean metal, they need metal cleaner, to clean couches, they need fabric cleaner, to clean mirrors, they need glass cleaner. The list goes on, with about two dozen more different types of cleaners, tools, and utilities that are needed to spruce up all the items in disrepair.

In addition to all of this, cleaning and repairing will also make the user and their clothes “dirty” tasking them with doing laundry or taking a shower, which, once again, uses specific shampoos, conditioners, detergents, and so on. It’s unclear why these mechanics seemed interesting to the developers. There are so many little steps to take in Inheritance that it becomes very cumbersome. Nothing is very convenient.

As a side note, it is worth noting that many of the items in question are branded goods.

As players do fix up the house and level up, new rooms become available, and it is actually quite gratifying to watch the veritable disaster area become beautiful again. Along with the ability to decorate with one’s own style in 3D, it can become very nice looking. In order to pay, though, players will need to find hidden treasures and antiques around the home to sell. Typically, these sell for a lot, but they are not always found frequently, so it is ill advised to spend frivolously on furniture.

Beyond the above mechanics, the story element is also important to Inheritance. This comes in the form of letters or manuscripts about the past resident, Genevieve, and her life in the home. It’s actually quite interesting as a sort of love story, but it is hard to say if the narrative will generate appeal for the average Facebook user.

As for the social mechanics, these appear to be fairly limited. Most prominent is a basic leaderboard system centered around overall house value and the ability to visit one another’s’ virtual spaces. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much beyond this, and as the game is still in beta, it is a bit buggy at the moment. So far, the people we’ve invited to play have not yet shown up in leaderboard, so we‘ve been unable to confirm any extra features (or even if you can visit a friend’s house).

Overall, Inheritance seems like an interesting idea that takes progression in a virtual space and turns it on its head. Rather than building a world up oneself, it is already presented and cleaned up in a fairly gratifying way. Nonetheless, the current state of the game requires far too much micromanagement and takes too much time focusing on apparent realism rather than more convenient fun, making the game feel very bloated and cumbersome. Unfortunately, it is these clunky mechanics that take away from the game to the point that many will likely not stick around after the initial play through. That said, the game is still in its early stages, so changes and upgrades are still on the way.

Personnel battles are becoming increasingly important for social gaming companies. As the industry becomes larger and more distinct, the pool of potential hires has shrunk, especially among executives.

European publisher Wooga’s latest hire, which a source recently tipped us off about, is thus something of a coup: Henric Suuronen, the now-former head of Digital Chocolate’s Barcelona office [correction: Suuronen was director of product, not studio head, according to Digital Chocolate], which developed the company’s most popular social titles to date including Millionaire City and MMA Pro Fighter.

As a product lead moving from one key mid-sized developer to another — not to mention one in Europe — we were interested to hear what Suuronen had to say. We got him on the phone for a short interview from Berlin, where he now heads up one of Wooga’s development studios.

Inside Social Games: What are you planning to do at Wooga?

Henric Suuronen: Wooga has always been about doing games that create emotion, and that’s how I see what’s important in games too. In Millionaire City for example, when you level up, there’s a torch in the air and an airplane flying with your name. If you’re not able to create emotion, you won’t be able to create a game with good retention.

I heard a pretty good quote when we were doing Millionaire City and there were four or five other city builders coming out at the same time. There was a girl who said she was playing [Playdom's] Social City for two hours and felt nothing, but Millionaire City after five minutes made her feel smart. Other comments were that it was like Sim City, but so much more fun.

You want to beat your friends, show off to your friends, instead of just mindless clicking and decoration. In the next generation of games there will be a lot of animation, you’ll feel attached to the characters, the game will creates a sense of competitiveness, make you feel smart and give you status among your friends.

ISG: Do you think that European developers are different from their American counterparts?

HS: They usually understand the importance of localization, because we’re working in a market where some people don’t speak English. Not just localization for the game, but for the ads, fanpage, community.

There’s another perspective coming from Europe, that you can develop for the world and not just the US. There are a lot of countries growing very quickly, with new users coming into the game, so those people invite more friends, share more feeds, and so forth. The European and Asian developers are aware of the importance of being outside of the US.

ISG: Both Digital Chocolate and Wooga have relatively unusual games. What makes them different?

HS: Millionaire City builds on the basic premise of making money. Cafe World and Restaurant City are about having a cafe, FarmVille is about having a farm, but a lot of people in those games still play primarily to make money. In Millionaire City, that’s the game.

The Wooga portfolio builds strongly around people who are already playing games on Facebook, and they don’t play games on consoles. There’s a large female crowd that’s very viral, and very possible to monetize. So we’re building characters that customers can relate to, a bit like Super Mario, which is probably my all-time favorite game. You know what Super Mario stands for, you can take him from one game to another. So Wooga is going with their portfolio in that direction, creating strong IP that you can take across games to create emotion and gives a distinguishing look and feel to the games.

ISG: So how do games like Bubble Island fit in?

HS: Traditionally on Facebook people say it’s impossible to monetize an arcade game. [Digital Chocolate's] Tower Bloxx, Brain Buddies and Bubble Island are all examples.

Going forward, it’s not about just delivering one game to a customer, but a portfolio of games that keeps a player entertained. Sometimes a player wants to play a management game, but sometimes they just want to shoot some bubbles, and get a quick fix from an arcade game. The Wooga portfolio is well suited to that, creating a customer who plays a portfolio for as long as possible and as frequently as possible. I think the arcade games are one cornerstone in creating a portfolio that caters to all needs of the customer.

ISG: How do you think mid-sized developers like Digital Chocolate and Wooga will do in the future?

HS: Obviously with all the changes on Facebook, virality has gone down, but still you see games like Millionaire City and Monster World growing. The focus has gone from purely spammy games to being smart in the games, making the customer enjoy the game with their friends and also giving them incentives to share and collaborate with their friends. It’s tricky to get a game that grows purely from virality, but still possible.

Midsized companies can do collaboration and better exchanges between apps. Say one company has a one million DAU game and another has a two million DAU game. I see no reason they can’t help each other out, especially if they have similar demographics. You see that happening a lot the past few months, as well as initiatives like Applifier [ed.: More on Applifier here] that offer banner space across games.

Going forward, it’s a tough business but definitely not impossible… I think it’s about releasing more games, but also cross-linking the games better. There’s a lot of effort to connect similar  games and get people into a gaming network. I see Mindjolt doing a bit of that with their arcade games, getting a portfolio and keeping the customer there. If they get tired of one game, they just switch to another. You can already see Wooga doing smarter cross-promotion between games than other companies.

Football season is upon us, and many fans are getting into the sporting spirit on social networks. The latest developer to make a bid for their attention is Arkadium, which in association with the New York Jets has launched the new Facebook title, Ultimate Fan.

The title itself isn’t a fully-fledged game complete with distinct objectives. Rather, it is intended as a supplement to football season. Ultimate Fan is a tool to, well, be a fan. The only objective is to garner as much support for your team of choice as possible. Players are asked to choose their favorite team and give them a fan boost by pitting two clashing helmets against each other: one of their chosen team, the other of their next opponent. Every couple of hours, players can “Boost” that team — the helmets clash and a gauge at the bottom of the screen shifts, displaying how many users are supporting each team.

For a big fan of football, it is a great visual representation of what teams are favored and how many fans are cheering on a particular team. Of course, this alone would make for a rather bare application, so Arkadium has also included a virtual space called “Pride.”

What fun would football be without a little tailgating? Well, not everyone can get out to the actual games, but with Ultimate Fan, players can decorate and create their own virtual tailgate party.  Players use an in-game currency called Tickets, or Facebook Credits, to decorate their space.

The décor consists of standard tailgating gear (cars, drinks, and tents) to the absurd (players can buy a tank… don’t ask). The only real downside is that the only team colors that are available are from the NY Jets. It’s understandable considering that they’re backing the game, but non-Jets fans will find the app less attractive as a result.

Friends can visit one another’s tailgate parties and rate them. At the moment, this is the only friend-based social element, but there is a feature coming that will allow players to “mess with rival fans tailgates.”

In addition to raw fan support, there is also a predictions section. Ultimate Fan has a collection of games scheduled in the upcoming week, where players can predict the winner. A separate stats page allows the user to see just how accurate their clairvoyance was. The more accurate one’s predictions, the more “Fan Points” the user can earn.

These are essentially experience points that determine the number of Tickets earned on a daily basis. Currently, the only other means to earn Fan Points is by decorating the tailgate area.

Eventually, users will also be able to use the boost mechanic to cheer their team’s individual players and “jinx” both opposing team players.

In the end, Ultimate Fan is designed to enhance the football season for the fans and give them another, more interactive, outlet to express their fandom through Facebook. It is a little skewed in favor of the NY Jets (for obvious reasons), but overall, it’s a nice bonus to watching a good game.

Social developer WonderHill has a new theme for an old concept. Rather than making a restaurant, bar, or nightclub, the developer has you building a tattoo parlor in its growing new game, Tattoo City. The concept is a bit more alternative than the company’s past focus on “wholesome” games, although the designs themselves are cartoonish.

The game has also notably grown to 2.6 million monthly active users in the last month, although the daily active user count is has been falling.

The objective of Tattoo City is, obviously, to build up a successful tattoo parlor. It’s pretty easy to do: Players first construct work chairs in their starting shoebox of a space, then hire non-player artists to do the work. For a small amount of coin, these artists will work anywhere from three minutes to two days, earning the player a chunk of change and experience when their “shift” is finished.

In order to hire any artists, however, a work chair, for actually doing tattoos is required, and the number of these in which one can have is gated by the current size of the virtual space, which is, in turn, gated by level. Unfortunately, this can become a bit tiresome to earn, as experience – which, along with money, is picked up FrontierVille-style – is garnered when one hires an artist or they finish. The only other means is a very monotonous selection of tattoos for waiting patrons.

Aside from work chairs, you’ll need to make room for potential customers entering the parlor. While they wait in placed chairs, players can click on them and select what tattoo they can get from a random selection of six. Once chosen, the customer will drop experience and occasionally “ink.” Of course, this cannot be done infinitely, as there is the standard energy bar in Tattoo City as well, and each tattoo selection (along with hiring artists) consumes some of this.

The ink that can occasionally drop is actually the more valuable item to get from customers. This can then be used as a currency for users to create their very own, custom tattoos. Going into a menu of all the tattoos in the game, players can “purchase” the different designs and place them onto a canvas; altering them in a rudimentary fashion. The editing is minimal at best though, consisting of very basic scale, rotate, and flip tools.

It’s actually a very nice idea for the concept of Tattoo City, but the implementation feels stunted in its potential. All the designs are still based around pre-existing templates, and there is no basic drawing or erasing tools. Additionally, the majority of the tattoo templates available are also gated by level. On top of that, the designs don’t appear to do anything aside from appear in the random selection of six when choosing tattoos for a customer. The interface suggests that they could be sharable amongst friends, but if that is possible, it isn’t very clear as to how.

In fact, gifting is the only significant social mechanic of notice in this app. It’s otherwise pretty bland in this area. The only other social feature that is evident is the basic leaderboards at the bottom of the screen and the ability to visit and view other friends’ parlors.

Everything else about Tattoo City is fairly basic as well, consisting of just trying to make one’s virtual space look nice, and cleaning up trash whenever one leaves the game for an extended period of time. Furthermore, the current selection of decorative items does nothing to increase patronage (ala other virtual business titles), and the overall selection is still, currently, a bit low.

Overall, though, Tattoo City is a decent game, with clear opportunities for expansion with the tattoo-creation tool and with parlor feature expansions.

Although the leader of this week’s AppData list of the fastest-gaining games on Facebook by monthly active users is by a top five developer, Playdom, most of the remaining titles are from smaller companies.

Here’s the full top 20:

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain,%
1.	City of Wonder	5,168,037	+2,561,154	+98%
2.	Millionaire City	6,504,892	+644,030	+11%
3.	Texas HoldEm Poker	33,119,003	+618,547	+2%
4.	Kingdoms of Camelot	5,682,636	+404,269	+8%
5.	Tattoo City	2,612,159	+355,384	+16%
6.	Nightclub City	7,958,877	+346,242	+5%
7.	The Price Is Right Game	778,940	+312,101	+67%
8.	MMA Pro Fighter	1,856,988	+301,013	+19%
9.	Monster World	3,229,146	+294,488	+10%
10.	Games	6,501,445	+228,719	+4%
11.	Lucky Train	971,569	+200,874	+26%
12.	Car Town	3,859,818	+195,758	+5%
13.	Mall World	4,719,576	+166,071	+4%
14.	Okey	3,405,130	+155,708	+5%
15.	Backyard Monsters	1,300,307	+152,972	+13%
16.	開心魚塘	969,108	+135,955	+16%
17.	Gift Creator	2,727,487	+127,591	+5%
18.	Critter Island	133,459	+125,184	+1,513%
19.	Free Flash Games	708,738	+118,962	+20%
20.	Profile Song	3,203,509	+118,139	+4%

City of Wonder is the performing title from Playdom, coming in with 2.4 million new MAU, four times more than the next-closest entry. The new city-building game is the spiritual successor to the older Social City, which is quickly declining — City of Wonder will be the larger title within a few days, at its current rate of growth.

Aside from Texas HoldEm Poker, there aren’t any other games from the big-name developers on the list.

Three games near the top of the list are worth notice for their slow-burn growth. Millionaire City, Kingdoms of Camelot and Nightclub City have all been out for months, but keep adding players nonetheless. It must also be noted that the three developers involved — Digital Chocolate, Kabam and Booyah — are all midsized companies with ambitions to break into the big leagues, so they may be spending significantly on ads.

Tattoo City, at number five, is from WonderHill, a developer that hasn’t previously seen anything near the level of success on Facebook that the new game is bringing. It’s a pretty interesting title, combining the popular store management concept with some guided content generation (the tattoos). Tattoo City does have some problems with engagement, though, with only around five percent of its 2.6 million MAU coming back on a daily basis.

The Price Is Right Game is the smallest title within the top 10, having been released in August by Ludia. Its fast growth is no real surprise, given how many of us likely grew up watching Bob Barker during his 35-year stint as the game show’s host.

Check out the top headlines and insights this week from Inside Facebook— tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

• International Users Accessing Facebook Places Through US VPN Accounts

Monday, August 30th, 2010

• Friend Quizzes, Dating and Video Chat Reach This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Apps by MAU
• Nextstop’s Sjogreen Helps Fill Facebook CTO Taylor’s Old Position on Platform
• LiveWorld Provides Global Brand Management Tools Using Facebook
• Frosmo Social Optimizer Helps Sites Track Users and Customize To Increase Revenue
• MySpace Now Letting Users Syndicate Status Updates to Facebook

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

• Top 20 Facebook Pages: Music, TV, Modern Warfare 2, Ronaldo and Megan Fox
• Facebook Creates Universities Page, Showcasing Deals and Tips for Students
• Urban Outfitters Makes Facebook Likes Featured Items
• Palm Releases Facebook For Palm webOS 1.3, Improved But Without Places
• Appbistro’s Facebook Page Tab Application Marketplace Gets a Verified Developer Program
• Facebook Wins Patent For Search Results Based On Clicks of Friends and Other Users
• Where is Facebook’s Chinese-Language Population Heading? A Look at Future Growth and REasons to Invest
• Facebook Tweaks Formula for Calculating Active Application Users

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

• Familiar Names Fill This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Apps by DAU
• Facebook Launches Prepaid Cards for Credits with Target
• Top 25 Facebook Games for September 2010: New Titles Rise, Older Ones Fall
• Apple to Launch Social Networks for Music and Games – What Are Its Bigger Social Ambitions?
• The New York Times Is Latest Newspaper to Tightly Integrate Facebook

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

• Ads API Profile: Marin Software Provides Audience Segmentation Across Facebook and Paid Search
• Facebook’s Recent Negotiations with Twitter and Apple Have Yet to Produce Results
• TheFind – Social Shopping With Facebook Integration
• Highlights This Week from the Inside Network Job Board: 6waves, Digital Chocolate, & More
• US Led Facebook Growth in August 2010, Mexico and India Tied for Second
• Now Available: The Facebook Global Language Report, September 2010 Edition
• PayPal to Launch New Simplified Payments Flow for Social Games

Friday, September 3rd, 2010

• Video and Retro TV Lead This Week’s List of Emerging Facebook Apps
• Facebook Tests New “Subscribe To” Option for Friends and Pages
• PlacePop Facebook App Brings Places Check-Ins Feed To The Web Interface
• The Facebook Global Monitor, September 2010 Edition, is Now Available
• New Security Features Lets Users End Active Facebook Sessions Remotely
• Users Not Able to Comment or Like Posts on Facebook Page Walls
• Facebook Prevents Users From Sending Suspicious Friend Requests To Strangers
• Facebook Roundup: Search, Revenue, Traffic, Music, Plixi, Egypt, and Prineville
• Thanks to Our Sponsors