Top Social Game Companies: Top Ten Myspace Games Vs. Top Ten Facebook Apps
Now that I'm seeing that Myspace has finally arrived as a powerful social gaming platform, I figured I should take a look at who succeeding on that platform vs. who's succeeding on Facebook. Below are the top ten games from both platforms as of Wednesday.
Myspace Top Ten Games
1. Mobsters - unknown
2. Mafia Wars - Zynga
3. Own Your Friends - unknown
4. SuperPets - Rockyou
5. SuperPoke Pets - Slide
6. Texas Holdem Poker - Zynga
7. Vampires - Zynga (reskinned Mob Wars type game, not like Blake Commagere's Vampires)
8. Heroes - unknown
9. Friend Factory - Zynga
10. Dragon Wars - Zynga
Facebook Top Ten Games
1. (lil) Green Patch
2. Texas Holdem Poker - Zynga
3. Friends For Sale - Serious Business
4. Owned - Coolapps/Myyearbook.com
5. Mob Wars
6. Word Challenge - Playfish
7. Bowling Buddies - Playfish
8. Who Has the Biggest Brain? -Playfish
9. Speed Racing - Rockyou
10. Mindjolt Games - Mindjolt Games
Quick note: Unknown could be an indie developer or a company keeping a low profile, it's hard to tell on Myspace.
Looking at Myspace, the top ten is completely dominated by Zynga games. Slide and Rockyou also make an appearance, but other top game developers on Facebook are nowhere to be seen. Playfish, SGN, Serious Business, and Alamofire have yet to make a serious push onto Myspace. I will note that many of the popular Zynga games appear to be rethemed versions of Mob Wars. Re-theming a game engine to serve different interest groups is an approach I've been advocated privately since I had a company. Glad to see someone is doing it.
On Facebook, Playfish dominates. Overall, rankings have been very static for a couple of months. Either developers are moving toward other platforms (some, but not most), none of the new games are any good (doubtful) or perhaps the viral mechanisms in Facebook have been dampened enough that it's much harder to acquire new users (hmm...worth a post...)
It's understandable that many companies are reluctant to develop for two platforms (or more). It diverts resources and focus. Zynga, with their 80+ employees (soon to be 150+) is the only company currently with the scale to do so without suffering much.
