The city building genre is proving to have serious legs on Facebook, with continued gains by newer titles in the genre. The top two entries on this week’s AppData list of fastest-growing games by monthly active users are both city builders:
| Top Gainers This Week – Games |
| Name | MAU | Gain | Gain,% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  ESPNU College Town | 1,249,244 | +854,613 | +217% |
| 2. |  Millionaire City | 9,878,861 | +717,218 | +8% |
| 3. |  It Girl | 3,879,609 | +479,776 | +14% |
| 4. |  Madden NFL Superstars | 2,001,761 | +402,523 | +25% |
| 5. |  Mafia Wars Game | 21,668,741 | +270,590 | +1% |
| 6. |  Warstorm | 1,149,450 | +253,968 | +28% |
| 7. |  MMA Pro Fighter | 4,051,052 | +244,197 | +6% |
| 8. |  Car Town | 5,316,998 | +195,910 | +4% |
| 9. |  Pop Boom | 2,286,165 | +194,682 | +9% |
| 10. |  Mall Dreams | 1,019,277 | +193,443 | +23% |
| 11. |  Crime City | 455,179 | +181,776 | +66% |
| 12. |  開心魚塘 | 890,470 | +177,622 | +25% |
| 13. |  Cupcake Corner | 862,826 | +174,081 | +25% |
| 14. |  Texas HoldEm Poker | 35,729,932 | +156,106 | +0.44% |
| 15. |  Fantasy Kingdoms | 722,879 | +145,236 | +25% |
| 16. |  JibJab | 545,780 | +140,388 | +35% |
| 17. |  Coffee Bar | 127,801 | +127,442 | +35,499% |
| 18. |  Bingo Island 2 | 552,388 | +124,489 | +29% |
| 19. |  Mynet Çanak Okey | 622,373 | +122,433 | +24% |
| 20. |  Critter Island | 1,386,956 | +122,341 | +10% |
ESPNU College Town is the latest evolution in Playdom’s line of city builders, which began with Social City and progressed on to City of Wonder. ESPNU is much like the latter, but with the addition of colleges and the ESPN branding.
Millionaire City, by Digital Chocolate, is five months old, but the developer seems to have chosen a strategy of continuing to focus on this title — as opposed to Playdom, which appears to have mostly moved on from Social City. Millionaire City should cross 10 million MAU this week, while MMA Pro Fighter, another Digital Chocolate title, just passed four million.
It Girl, at number three, is the latest from CrowdStar, along with Pop Boom, which shows up at number nine. The percentage of It Girl’s monthly active users who return as daily users is only 10 percent, quite low for this type of game. However, that number may be more revealing of CrowdStar’s aggressive promotion of the game, which can lead to a lot of players churning in and out, than any real lack of quality or stickiness. Pop Boom’s DAU / MAU is even lower, at only five percent, but it also has lower ratings.
A few new games also made the list: Mall Dreams by Metrogames and Crime City by Funzio are both brand new, while Warstorm by Zynga and Fantasy Kingdoms by Sneaky Games are effectively new, never having grown beyond a few hundred thousand MAU in the past. Also take note of Coffee Bar, the latest from Mob Science, at number 17, the only game mentioned that we haven’t reviewed yet.
Source: Inside Social Games
Monday, October 11, 2010