Zynga, the leader in social games with over 40 million daily active users, has a new hit on their hands. Cafe World, their latest release, has grown to 10 million users in just one week on Facebook. This is a remarkable feat – to launch a social gaming app and add over 10 m
illion new users in one week. This continues Zynga’s momentum from its flagship title, Farmville which has over 56 million registered users.
Cafe World is not just copy of Zynga’s major social gaming application provider Playfish’s 16 million member Restaurant City game. In Cafe World users create restaurants, market them through their social networks and sell virtual good. While some of the features are comparable across both games, Cafe World does have some unique elements, like restaurant expansion. For a review of the two games, check out this link from Inside Social Games.
How does Zynga make any money for these games you ask? They monetize their users by utilizing virtual goods, where users buy virtual items. According to industry analysts, Zynga is on pace to bring in over $200 million in revenue this year. Who says online social gaming is a small, irrelevant market? Below is a leaderboard of social games that shows Zynga and their title Farmville’s current domination. brought to you by AppData.
This news comes as other social gaming players have been emerging in the marketplace looking to capitalize on the success demonstrated by both Zynga and Playfish. Recently, PopCap raised $22.5 million for institutional investors and Playdom has been making the rounds in Silicon Valley looking for a round of funding as well. There is clearly a big, rapidly growing market opportunity for these players – especially if they distinguish themselves from the two leaders and leverage the unparalleled distribution that social networks have enabled for them.
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I have been playing cafeworld for months now and then today for more reason I can’t play it. I can get fits, I can invite neighbors, I can look into how much coins I have. And I can play all the other games, like farmville, voville, mafia whatever. But when I hit play and white black screen comes up.