As the discussions are going on the social gaming’s future, we’d like to analyze the current situation of top Facebook applications in terms of player base. What we want to do is to show the latest changes in those applications. In our analysis we’ll use Product Life-Cycle (PLC) approach, developed by Theodore Levitt published in Harvard Business Review entitled “Exploit the Product Life Cycle” on 1 November 1965, which is directly related with the developers, marketers past decisions. We read player base graphics as dynamic responses of players to changes and investments that game development team has done.
We concentrated our efforts on top Facebook “Game” applications which are dominated by Zynga with 6 out of 10 applications as you can see from the table (leaderboard as of 19.09.10) above. Below you will find more info about the analysis done with respect to player base graphics.
Farmville
As you all know Farmville is the biggest application in terms of player base in Facebook space with its record high MAU, more than 2X of closest follower Birthday Cards of RockYou!. When we read the graph as life-cycle chart, we see that after introduction, growth stages, Farmville is coming to a maturity stage where growth rate decreases and stabilizes. Zynga is constantly adding and testing new features for product differentiation in this stage, however it seems that they won’t be able to see high-growth numbers as occurred in growth stages. Despite of the lower growth rates, Zynga might be experiencing the most profitable stage of Farmville. We are expecting new features like collaborative farming, constructing in the upcoming days.
Actually Birthday Cards is not a game however it seems that RockYou! has categorized it as a game to be able to cross-promote with its animal-care game Zoo World. Now, with a new feature users are able to transfer Birthday Cards points to Zoo World. From the graph, it is clear that they had a long introduction period, but around November.09 they’ve start to see high-growth rates but mostly followed by a decline. (may be because of birthday dates) Because it’s a utility application which helps users to remember the important dates and to send gifts, we believe that this application will be growing with the new features and content.
Texas Holdem’ Poker
Texas Hold’em Poker is a variation of famous card game Poker and surely one of the most popular forms of Poker. Although there are many poker applications, Zynga’s Texas Hold’em Poker is holding the top rank in Facebook poker games. Player base graph shows us this application is still in growth stage despite it’s one of the earliest apps on Facebook. Growth numbers for this application seems very healthy and steady, Zynga is doing quite good work with this application. We think some of the popularity and success of this app comes from the early launch and poker title itself, but it’s the only app in Facebook application leader board which is still growing in a steady state.
Café World
Café World is a restaurant management application where players are in charge of restaurant business, design the place, prepare the menu, cook&serve the meals, etc. Café World’s initial growth was very fast in fact this app was the fastest growing social game, however after a successful growth period it seems that this app is in maturity stage right now, where number of new players acquired and daily active players are decreasing. Unless supported with new features, we expect a gradual decline in the user base.
Mafia Wars
Mafia Wars is a multiplayer browser game created by Zynga. Game is about doing and mastering jobs to earn cash and experience, players may also create mafias by recruiting players (friends) and using reward points to hire extra mafia members. In terms of game mechanics and setup, this game is targeted for male audience and core gamers. Mafia Wars is served through multiple platforms like iphone, Myspace, Friendster, etc. which gives the opportunity to increase playing frequency. When we look at the player base growth graphic above, it is seen that Mafia Wars is still in growth period. With the “Moscow” city expansion they’ve experienced a slight increase in the monthly active players. With its core audience Mafia Wars has a great opportunity for growth with new content like cities, jobs, etc. We expect Zynga to add new content for to keep the growth and satisfy player base to come back frequently.
Petville
Petville is another Zynga game that you can understand from the “Ville” suffix from the title. In this game player is a pet owner, caring for its own pet. Like many other pet-themed games, it is the job of the owner to keep the pet clean, happy, and well-fed in order to “level up”. This game is rolled-out after successful launch of Pet Society, Happy Pets however Petville is the biggest in terms of player base. When we look at the player base graphic, this game has had the most aggressive growth period when it’s compared with other pet titles thanks to huge marketing investment. However after growth stage it seems that this game has come to maturity stage, but there is a slight increase in the player base in this stage, maybe because of new add-ons like mini-café limited collections or building yard, etc. We expect Zynga to keep the slow growth with new content add-ons, but eventually player base will be experiencing decline as the other pet titles are experiencing nowadays.
Happy Aquarium
After farm titles and farmer role-playing, new trend was growing fish in the browser. Happy Aquarium was one of the early successful titles of Crowdstar and remains at the top of virtual aquarium games which is then copied and reworked by Zynga. According to player base graphic, it turns out that after a fast growth stage, 20M+ in 2 months, game is experiencing maturity stage with a slight decline in the monthly player base. When we look at the daily player numbers, decline is seen as more serious. We expect Happy Aquarium to loose ground in this leader board unless new content or marketing support is received.
Fishville
As a product of Zynga’s approach to take popular titles and create its own hit to compete against the owner of the original game idea, Fishville couldn’t succeed to beat Happy Aquarium in terms of player base as its the case in Petville vs. Pet Society example. It seems that players are started to feel bored with growing fish in the browser, most famous titles of virtual aquarium games are experiencing maturity stage and decline in the daily-monthly player numbers in those days.
Pet Society
As one of the early titles of pet-caring titles in social space, Playfish’s Pet Society has been quite successful with its continuously growing player base. Unlike its clone Petville, Pet Society has been achieved to grow its player base continuously with a stable traction more than 1 year. However with the start of 2010, Pet Society is experiencing a decrease in the growth rate and close to maturity stage. Marketing team have to think about new updates and features to catch back the previous growth numbers.
Zoo World
Zoo World is the second biggest application of RockYou! on Facebook. This game allows you to build your own zoo, purchase animals and supplies, hire staff, and decorate around exactly how you want it to be. From the player base graphic it is seen that this game is in maturity period where a slight decrease in the monthly player numbers are experienced. Smart moves from RockYou! team is needed like making the game accessible from Birthday Cards application to turn the graph upside again.
All in all, it’s clear that most famous titles of Facebook are struggling with growth problem if we do not take into account 2 titles, Texas Holdem’ Poker and Mafia Wars, which are very promising for future growth. When we look at those promising titles it’s clear that they don’t have happy, cute illustrations and mechanics like growing your “lovely” pet, instead they have “core game” elements and loyal players that keeps coming on. It is an important insight that needs to be remembered for future development of social games.
Very interesting analysis. Thanks for this.
Where do you get the data and graphs from? Could really use that data for my own site…
Graphs are taken from http://www.developeranalytics.com where you can view player base data daily, weekly, monthly