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Nicholas Lovell
Home   >   Analysis and Opinion   >   Analysis   >   Playfish falls in the top 25 Facebook games for June

Playfish falls in the top 25 Facebook games for June

By on July 7, 2009

InsideSocialGames has released their statistics for the top Facebook games in June 2009.

Click for full-size image of the Top 25 Facebook Games in June 2009.

I last looked at the top Facebook games in March, so we’re three months down the line. There have been some interesting changes:

  • To get into the top ten, you now need 4.6 million monthly players, up 22% from 3.8 million players in March.
  • Playfish now has only two games in the top ten, compared to four in March. But Pet City has grown 29% in the last three months, while Restaurant City, which has 5.9 million players, wasn’t even launched in March.
  • Three of the top ten games in July weren’t even in the top 25 in March (Farm Town, Restaurant City, Farmville)

Of course, raw statistics don’t tell the whole story. My understanding is that Playfish makes more money from micro-transactions in Pet City and Restaurant City than it does from advertising and premium services for its other games. Therefore it may well be prioritising getting users into the games where they are more profitable.

The main conclusion, however, is that no-one is safe in the Facebook games market. New games can and do appear startling quickly. Any bets on when we see the first game from a “traditional” games publisher in the list?

About Nicholas Lovell

Nicholas is the founder of Gamesbrief, a blog dedicated to the business of games. It aims to be informative, authoritative and above all helpful to developers grappling with business strategy. He is the author of a growing list of books about making money in the games industry and other digital media, including How to Publish a Game and Design Rules for Free-to-Play Games, and Penguin-published title The Curve: thecurveonline.com