Holiday Hangovers End On This Week's List of Facebook Games With the Most New Daily Active Users

Our latest ranking of Facebook games that gained the most daily active users has plenty of familiar names this time around, as the recovery from the twin holiday slumps of Christmas and New Year's continued this week. What looked like declines in DAU for many games toward the end of December now appear to be gains; in reality, most large titles have held steady over the course of the past month. The post-holiday uptick started last week and continued into this one, which is one reason that nine of the top 10 DAU gainers were also on last week's list. Still, there are a few interesting movements to point out. First, the list: Top Gainers This Week - Games Name DAU Gain Gain, % 1. FarmVille 27,898,912 +1,163,442 +4.17 2. Happy Island 2,276,246 +484,287 +21.28 3. Tiki Farm 1,010,569 +378,730 +37.48 4. Pillow Fight 1,145,347 +373,256 +32.59 5. Café World 9,880,979 +364,195 +3.69 6. Country Life 2,315,020 +312,038 +13.48 7. Texas HoldEm Poker 5,398,574 +227,515 +4.21 8. MindJolt Games 2,327,650 +217,035 +9.32 9. Island Paradise 2,058,836 +191,322 +9.29 10. Zoo World 1,475,773 +185,168 +12.55 11. FishVille 6,889,169 +129,694 +1.88 12. PetVille 4,172,691 +103,520 +2.48 13. Country Story 1,185,586 +99,569 +8.40 14. My Town 204,169 +93,418 +45.76 15. Friends For Sale! 746,749 +89,979 +12.05 16. LivingSocial 199,030 +74,678 +37.52 17. Garden World 246,793 +71,092 +28.81 18. Wild Ones 96,194 +57,964 +60.26 19. Barn Buddy 1,043,347 +45,823 +4.39 20. what are you born to do? 90,541 +36,683 +40.52 It's not hard to see that Farmville has claimed the top spot almost by default; the game has enough users that even a smallish rise in its DAU percentage puts it over everything else. Still, even if it's not actually growing, the game appears to be continuing its penetration ever more deeply into the popular conscious. One genre of pop FarmVille story right now is that even real farmers are addicted -- as one quipped "it doesn't depict real farming because you make money at it all the time." Other high positions are similarly held by games that are recovering from the holidays: Cafe World, Texas Hold'em, Mindjolt Games, Fishville and Petville are all in that same category, showing dips in DAU around the two big holidays with a slow recovery through this week. A different trend is taking place in a small chain of island-themed games, which, as we noted on Monday, appear to suddenly be popular: Happy Island, Tiki Farm and Island Paradise. All three games were released recently, and none are huge yet, so it's still possible they're a smaller fad brought about by winter -- who wouldn't rather be on an island right now? The remainder of the list is taken up by a mix. Two of the games actually appear to be in decline, longer-term. Barn Buddy's monthly active users have decreased by a third over the past month, while its DAU is down some 18 percent; its presence on the list is probably just a holiday recovery. Country Story has experienced a similar decline in MAU, though its DAU numbers aren't down much at all. Finally, there's another trio of small-but-growing games. Garden World, a modification of the farming genre, continues to grow strongly. My Town is a city building game released by Broken Bulb Studios, which also runs Ninja Warz. Wild Ones is a new artillery game from Playdom that's essentially a less-amusing version of Worms featuring dogs (we reviewed it after its release). Given the current fascination of Facebook users with raising animals, it should be interesting to see whether they're willing to blow away household pets en masse; so far, the game's userbase has grown somewhat unevenly.

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Holiday Hangovers End On This Week's List of Facebook Games With the Most New Daily Active Users

Chris Morrison

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Chris Morrison