[Every other week, Gamasutra examines the most popular Facebook games according to monthly active users, looking at the top titles and developers on the social network to see who's attracting or losing players.]
The top 10 games on Facebook's App Leaderboard doesn't look too different from the chart two weeks ago, but just outside of the top 10 are two interesting and fast-growing titles that you can expect to see further up the list soon.
Rovio's Angry Birds, a juggernaut title on mobile platforms, is also drawing a huge crowd on Facebook, where it finally launched last month. It's already the 14th biggest game on the social network, and has attracted 12.8 million users.
OMGPOP's Draw Something is another recently launched game that's gotten popular on mobile and is finding success on Facebook. It's currently the 13th most popular game with 12.9 million users, 6.9 million of which started playing in the last week.
At the top of the chart, we have the usual leaders from Zynga: CityVille with 46.4 million users (down from 46.9 million two weeks ago), Texas HoldEm Poker with 33.9 million (up from 33.5 million), and Hidden Chronicles with 30.8 million (down from 33.1 million).
FarmVille takes number four with 29.2 million monthly active users (up from 28.4 million), and is followed by two other Zynga games: CastleVille with 28 million (down from 28.8 million) and Words With friends with 20.7 million (up from 20.4 million).
Electronic Arts' The Sims Social slipped a spot to number seven with 20 million players (down from 20.6 million). The remaining top ten games are Wooga's Diamond Dash with 18.7 million users, Bubble Witch Saga with 16.7 million users, and Tetris Online's Tetris Battle with 16.1 million.
The full list of the top 20 fastest growing Facebook games along with exact monthly active user counts, are as follows:
All charts and data are courtesy of Facebook application metrics and trends site AppData.
I do not believe this data is fully accurate. Drawsomething is truely a phenomenom on iOS right now, but I don't believe it is really getting the type of traction on Facebook that Appdata is suggesting. One thing you need to take into consideration is that when an iOS game has Facebook connect in the app, Appdata often records the mobile user as a Facebook user. If you search on appdata you will also find Smurf Village on Appdata and there is no Facebook App available. There is a game linked to the Drawsomething facebook page called Draw My Thing. That game only has about 1.8M MAU, which is still respectable but hardly the breakout hit you are suggesting in this article. It is also possible that Words With Friends is overstating their Facebook activity as well. I would suggest the writer do a little research before crowning a new facebook rising star.
Yes, there is no version of Draw Something playable on Facebook. It seems that Draw Something, although released only on iOS and Android, is considered as an app by Facebook due to the close integration with the social network.
When doing a search on Facebook for "Draw Something", "Draw Something by OMGPOP" comes out first in the list, and Facebook shows it is an App with 22.4 million monthly users (as of March 21 at least). Then when you click on it, it redirects to the Facebook Page of the App (not the Facebook App itself).
When doing a search on Facebook for "Draw Something", "Draw Something by OMGPOP" comes out first in the list, and Facebook shows it is an App with 22.4 million monthly users (as of March 21 at least). Then when you click on it, it redirects to the Facebook Page of the App (not the Facebook App itself).