新年将至，社交游戏巨头公司Zynga新发布的游戏CityVille创造了本年度用户增长神话：仅仅发布18天，该游戏的月活跃用户飙升至4790万，离位居榜首的FarmVille（5630万）仅有一步之遥。

cityville

如果继续保持目前的增长速度，CityVille将可能在三天内超越FarmVille。即便增长速度有所减慢，CityVille也可能在本周内实现超越FarmVille。

据游戏邦了解，一周前CityVille的月活跃用户为2200万。当时我们将其快速增长的原因归结为4点：跨游戏宣传，面向国际用户，高制作水准和Zynga员工针对Facebook平台的研发。此外还有一大重要因素在于本月Facebook社交网站重新启动了主菜单的第三方通告功能。

Cityville-Mau

然而，虽然有上述因素在起作用，CityVille如此高的增长速度仍然令人惊讶。哪怕是最热门的社交游戏FarmVille当年也花费了3个月时间才获得如此佳绩。在最高峰时期，FarmVille的月活跃用户高达8000万。现在虽然全球游戏玩家的不断增长，CityVille很有可能突破这一记录。

目前，Zynga公司在社交游戏领域仍然占有举足轻重的地位，该公司旗下所有游戏月活跃用户总计约为2亿4100万，同比上个月提高了18%；月活跃用户同比上升25%。

Zynga-DAU

然而，从长远来看，zynga公司并不十分乐观。首先，作为Zynga主要社交游戏的FarmVille和FrontierVille日活跃用户呈现下滑趋势。虽然由于CityVille的发布，该两款游戏的月活跃用户有所增长，然过去一个月中，Farontierville的日活跃用户下降8%，FarmVille下降2%。

由此可见，目前很大一部分的cityVille玩家主要来自于Zynga旗下的其他Facebook游戏，因此短期间内Zynga公司游戏的总体玩家人数没有太大变化。值得一提的是，CityVille日活跃用户占月活跃用户30%的比例在未来可能逐渐下降。

从根本上来说，Zynga公司旗下拥有许多热门社交游戏。目前新游戏cityVille还未享受到如同FarmVille一般的市场关注度。不论cityVille最终是否可以取得和FarmVille一样的成就，它的确值得广大游戏开发商的关注。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

With just two weeks left to go for 2010, CityVille has become this year’s biggest growth story. The game, itself only 18 days old, has 47.9 million monthly active users, putting it close to FarmVille’s current 56.3 million.

If its current growth rates continue, CityVille will pass FarmVille in three more days. Even if it slows, CityVille should pass the farming game this week.

A week ago, when CityVille had a mere 22 million MAU, we covered four reasons for its growth: cross-promotion, international users, high production values and Zynga’s expertise at working the Facebook platform. Another factor that appears to be helping it is the re-introduction of third-party notifications to the top menu bar earlier this month.

Even with those factors in effect, CityVille’s gains are astounding. No Facebook game has ever grown as quickly. FarmVille, which took about three months to hit the same point, is the only one to ever grow as large.

FarmVille’s top point was over 80 million MAU, which now seems reasonable for CityVille to reach or even surpass, given the growing number of international gamers on Facebook.

Its effects on Zynga’s numbers are still working out. The developer is at 241 million MAU, a gain of about 18 percent over where it stood a month ago. Its daily active user gain of 25 percent, putting it at 55.7 million DAU, is even sharper. But long-term both the hard numbers and percentages should change significantly.

One trend we can see developing is a drop in DAU for Zynga’s core sim titles, FarmVille and FrontierVille. Both appear to be growing, with small MAU gains in the period since CityVille launched. But FrontierVille has lost about eight percent of its DAU in the past month, with FarmVille losing two percent.

We can theorize that a significant number of CityVille players have been recycled from Facebook’s other sims, so Zynga’s gains will moderate over time. CityVille’s DAU as a percentage of MAU, currently at 30 percent, may also drop over time.

The bottom line, though, is that Zynga has a huge hit on its hands. CityVille hasn’t yet received the kind of press attention that FarmVille got at its peak; that may come later, or not at all. But developers should be paying attention, especially those that previously thought another FarmVille-scale hit would be impossible on Facebook. （Source：Inside Social Games）