圣诞节来临，当人们忙于节日大采购之际，Zynga公司新款社交游戏CityVille成功超越FarmVille，取得Facebook月活跃用户量第一的宝座。

cityville

据Allfacebook.com报道，美国时间24日早晨CityVille以500万月活跃用户的优势成功超越FarmVille。目前，凭借着700万日增用户，新款社交游戏CityVille再次证明了自己的坚强实力。12月1日CityVille发布首日，该款游戏就吸引了29万用户，为Zynga社交游戏开发历史再添光辉一笔。

据游戏邦了解，现在社交游戏CityVille月活跃用户为6160万，月增长2300万游戏用户，日活跃用户则是1670万。

cityville application

同比，目前拥有月活跃用户5680万和日活跃用户1630万的FarmVille与cityVille相距甚微。然而FarmVille缺乏足够的增长动力。其日增长用户仅为21万6000人，月增长游戏用户在100万左右。

farmville

因此，在CityVille成功篡位的同时，更令人激动的事实是该款游戏的增长趋势并没有显示出疲软之态。据游戏邦了解，如果CityVille继续保持这一增长速度的话，该款游戏极有可能超越FarmVille最高峰时期的8400万月活跃用户。

然而，与CityVille快速增长的日活跃用户相比，Zynga公司其他社交游戏日活跃用户数量却不断下滑。FrontierVille日活跃用户下降25万4954人，Mafia Wars则是下降1万3706人。

尽管如此，未来几年Zynga公司毫无疑问仍将占据社交游戏领域的龙头位置。由于“Ville”系列游戏获得了不少的用户支持，相信未来Zynga仍将继续深入开发这一类型的社交游戏。Zynga将始终秉持“物尽其用”的理念进行社交游戏开发。实际上，社交游戏开发商们十分善于“古今结合”，这类的游戏开发方式在业内并不罕见。上周的新款Facebook游戏Create就是老游戏The Incredible Machine的翻制产品。

最后，让我们思考一下：Zynga公司下一款“Ville”游戏将面临何种处境呢？游戏背景是关于美国殖民时期还是中世纪？这将有千万种可能性。Zynga新款游戏会何时发布？采取何种路线？如果玩家对社交游戏的热情骤减，Zynga又将采取何种措施呢？（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

First reported the other day on Social Times, CityVille was on its way to dethrone FarmVille as the biggest game on Facebook. As we all wake up to do our last minute Christmas shopping, CityVille surpassing FarmVille is probably the last thing from our mind, but I’m proud to report that CityVille has now taken the throne.

According to AllFacebook.com, CityVille surpassed FarmVille by about 5 million monthly active users (MAU) this morning. CityVille, with now a daily growth of about 7 million users, has established itself  once again in the social gaming world after its launch in early December. On the day of CityVille’s launch, over 290,000 gamers were attracted to CityVille, making CityVille the largest launch ever in Zynga‘s history.

CityVille, with now over 61.6 million monthly active users, currently has a weekly growth of 23 million users with a base of 16.7 million daily active users.

FarmVille, with 16.3 million daily active users, is not far behind CityVille with regards to daily active users. FarmVille’s 56.8 million monthly active users also is not that far behind CityVille’s 61.6 million monthly active users. However, FarmVille is lacking in the growth department. FarmVille is only bringing in a daily growth of 216,000 users and a weekly growth of 1 million users.

The most remarkable part of CityVille dethroning FarmVille is that CityVille shows no signs of slowing down growth wise. With growing growth like this, it will be interesting to see if CityVille’s peak will be able to overcome  FarmVille’s peak of 84 million monthly active users.

While Zynga’s CityVille has an increasing daily growth, other Zynga games are decreasing in daily growth. FrontierVille, with a growth of -254,954 daily users, is trailing right behind Texas Hold’em, while Zynga’s Mafia Wars Game has a growth of -13,706 daily users has locked itself into 5th place.

Without a doubt, Zynga will be at the top of  the social gaming community for a long time. As long as “Ville” games attract users, Zynga will continue to make them. Zynga’s logic is based on a simple idea: if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. Earlier in the week I reported about the new Create application that was developed for Facebook users. Create, as stated in the article, has a lot of similarities of an older game called The Incredible Machine. Gaming developers tend to do this quite often: take an old idea that worked and tweak it (I will be writing a whole article on this idea in the near future). Zynga has been able to grasp this concept and take advantage of it every step of their social gaming developing career.

On a final note, what type of “environment” will Zynga come up with for the next “Ville” game? Could it be a game that takes place in America’s colonial period? What about recreating an environment something like the middle ages? The possibilities may seem endless, but eventually the type of environments will run out. When they do (and they will), what type of direction will Zynga take? Will social gaming decrease in popularity if Zynga does take another avenue? （Source：socialtimes）