International Apps Speed Ahead on This Week’s List of Emerging Facebook Games
This week’s AppData list of emerging Facebook games, defined as those still under a million monthly active users, contains some interesting nuggets, including the new Chinese-language version of FarmVille that we commented on earlier this morning:
Top Gainers This Week – Games |
| Name | MAU | Gain | Gain,% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  FarmVille 中文版 |
326,301 | +326,171 | +250,901% |
| 2. |  Big Business |
398,533 | +232,216 | +140% |
| 3. |  Hero |
560,354 | +221,739 | +65% |
| 4. |  Trial Madness 2 |
512,123 | +205,181 | +67% |
| 5. |  Paradise Life |
449,422 | +195,301 | +77% |
| 6. |  My Vineyard |
879,549 | +190,961 | +28% |
| 7. |  Galaxy X |
608,596 | +188,672 | +45% |
| 8. |  Crazy Cabbie |
702,565 | +180,022 | +34% |
| 9. |  Horse Saga |
556,785 | +177,580 | +47% |
| 10. |  Farmandia |
913,768 | +169,117 | +23% |
| 11. |  Little War |
677,496 | +153,925 | +29% |
| 12. |  David Guetta, Play with it! |
424,014 | +120,004 | +39% |
| 13. |  Gourmet Ranch |
539,880 | +111,879 | +26% |
| 14. |  Dragons of Atlantis |
468,568 | +108,235 | +30% |
| 15. |  Downhill Snowboard |
500,777 | +105,725 | +27% |
| 16. |  My Shops |
239,137 | +99,889 | +72% |
| 17. |  Ninjas Rising |
729,077 | +99,716 | +16% |
| 18. |  Bricks Breaking |
429,696 | +91,808 | +27% |
| 19. |  Classic Word Games |
319,859 | +83,497 | +35% |
| 20. |  Santa Yourself |
289,487 | +83,468 | +41% |
FarmVille 中文版 is more of an update and revamp than plan localized version, with changes in its graphics and user interface to make it more palatable to Facebook’s Chinese-language population, which is mostly composed of users in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan.
At number two, the new city-builder Big Business is doing quite well. The game goes beyond just constructing a city to include industrial production and trade, as we covered in our review several weeks ago.
Hero, while a somewhat shoddy-looking game, is doing quite well. There’s a reason for this: glaringly obvious violations of Facebook policies. Consider Hero’s forced wall posts, in which the app loads sharing screens with a pre-checked box to “Post to Facebook”:
Games and apps created by international companies, for more international audiences, often seem able to break Facebook’s rules without attracting attention, and benefit hugely from doing so. Western developers sometimes complain about Facebook is unpredictably strict in its treatment of them; instances like Hero suggest that complaints about disparities in enforcement have some validity.
The list is actually full of apps that deserve some remarks, but we’ll close out with two more comments. First, the list is still fairly well-populated by casual and arcade titles like Trial Madness 2 and Crazy Cabbie, which have been showing up for several weeks now. And second, My Vineyard, a title that Playdom picked up in an acquisition, has suddenly started growing, as several other Playdom titles have.
December 24th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
[...] platform, …CityVille Beats FarmVille as number Facebook game as FarmVille enters ChinaGamezeboInternational Apps Speed Ahead on This Week's List of Emerging Facebook GamesInside Social GamesCityVille Surges To Become Facebook's Top ApplicationForbes [...]
December 25th, 2010 at 8:39 am
[...] is having a busy Christmas: early this morning, CityVille passed the game developer’s largest hit, FarmVille. CityVille now has 61.7 million monthly active [...]
December 30th, 2010 at 4:50 pm
What Hero is doing is not a violation under current Facebook policy. Apps only need to provide an opt-out, not necessarily an opt-in. However, once unchecked, the same potential posting action must be unchecked in future instances until the user reloads the app. I’m surprised this website would have such a fundamental misunderstanding of the current policies.
December 31st, 2010 at 1:01 am
James, Facebook’s policy specifically mandates the use of an easily identifiable option to skip, which is typically included as an actual “Skip” button; apps substituting other options, like a top-right “X” to close the dialogue box, have had enforcement action taken against them.
In the case of Hero, the app loads dialogue boxes with a pre-ticked box in the bottom-right for users to post to Facebook. That, to me, looks like a clear example of a developer acting in bad faith toward policy, i.e. attempting to force users to auto-post.
You’re right that it doesn’t have to be read as a direct violation of policy, but Facebook typically applies its own discretion in these cases — I do think that if this were an app from a more recognized developer, aimed at English-language users, it would quickly run into the policy enforcers. Or, to put it another way, if Hero’s style of dialogue boxes were a valid way to do business, you’d see established developers using it. If you’ve got some deeper insight, I’d be happy to hear it.