March Madness Facebook Game Showdown: Final Four

Upsets galore in the second round of our March Madness Facebook Game Showdown, just like in the real NCAA Basketball tournament.

In our quest to determine the best Facebook game, most of our match-ups have been cruising along without any major upsets. No longer! In the second round of our Showdown, things went haywire with several favorites finding themselves on the outs, including three of Zynga's most popular games.
Pet Society by Playfish continued its unlikely run as its fans backed it all the way through to the Final Four. Pet Society defeated Zynga Poker 57% to 43% in a close match-up. Pet Society has now defeated two higher seeded Zynga produced opponents in Cafe World and Zynga Poker.

In what is likely the biggest upset this side of VCU over Kansas, Treasure Isle defeated the heavily favored FarmVille. The two Zynga made games went head to head and in unbelievable turn of events, Treasure Isle squeaked by FarmVille 52% to 48%. Unreal, considering how much Games.com -- The Blog! readers favor FarmVille over all else.

The last in our upset trifecta is the defeat of staff favorite FrontierVille by Pop Cap's plucky arcade classic Bejeweled Blitz. In what has to be the triumph of the name brand, Bejeweled over the newer FrontierVille, Bejeweled Blitz won 54% to 45%.

Rounding out our final match up of the second round and last Final Four participant CityVille, the number one seed in the tournament defeated Mafia Wars. CityVille is the only top seeded game to advance to the Final Four trounced Mafia Wars handily 66% to 33%

Here the Final Four match-ups for the March Madness Facebook Game Showdown:

E3 2011: Pet Society Vacation on iPhone takes your Facebook pet on a tropical trip

Before this year's E3, we were given nothing more than a name to go on for EA Interactive and Playfish's newest iOS game, but what a name it was: Pet Society Vacation. Today, we may not have been able to go hands-on with Pet Society Vacation, or even see it in action (due to a temporary wi-fi issue), but we did learn more about what makes this expansion of the established Facebook game tick.

First and foremost, Pet Society Vacation isn't so much a new game as it is a way for you to earn exclusive items back in your Facebook game. Your pet's appearance and level from Facebook will be brought over to this tropical expansion and island, where you'll be given a house boat. The house boat has a single room, but over time can be expanded just like your normal home. These rooms, of course, will be empty, so a set of tropical item shops will be available in the game to allow you to outfit both your new rooms and your pet in tropical gear. Unfortunately, if you have any themed items currently in your Facebook inventory, you can't access these from Vacation, so you really are starting from scratch in that respect.

As for earning coins in Vacation, you'll be able to visit friends and care for your friends' pets as you'd expect, but you can also play a new Scuba-diving mini-game to dig for not only coins under the water, but also new decorative items for your house boat.

Even if you have a lot of Pet Society friends in the original game on Facebook, you won't be able to send free gifts to all of them via the app; only the ones that also play Vacation on iPhone. Additionally, due to the fact that both games on are different platforms, you'll have to accept not being able to use your saved premium currency on Facebook over in Vacation and vice versa.

Pet Society Vacation will launch on iPhone and iPod Touch later this summer and will be free to download. Get ready to connect your Facebook account once more to start new adventures with your pets on the go!

Playfish says goodbye to Hotel City, My Empire and four more games

The Sims Social might have dethroned the mighty FarmVille, but its success may have cut into Playfish's other Facebook games and sent them to a speedier doom, too. On August 30th, the word went out in the official Playfish forums that Hotel City, My Empire, Who Has The Biggest Brain?, Geo Challenge, Word Challenge and Bowling Buddies will be getting axed Sept. 30.

We used to cover Hotel City back in the day (the game first launched on March 26, 2010) and can remember when it was a big deal. The game was well made and had once held an all-time high of 13 million monthly players and 3 million daily players. Right now, it's at 1.4 million monthly players and about 100,000 dailies, ranking it the 9th most-played Playfish and EA game on Facebook. But it's clear that won't be enough to save it.

Hotel City's popularity is followed closely by Bowling Buddies, Word Challenge, then Geo Challenge. Finally, far beneath them all on the social games ladder are Who Has The Biggest Brain? and My Empire. Though, at least one player suspects it may not be all about numbers, because Country Story currently ranks 10th behind Hotel City. But there's been no announcement to shut it down (yet).

Are you going to miss any of these Playfish games? Care to start a betting pool on the death of Country Story?

The Sims Social yanked millions of Zynga players, Raptr report suggests

With over 66 million monthly players, we all know that The Sims Social is killing it. But EA and Playfish's flagship social game might be killing more than just it --the game is rapidly killing off Zynga's player base, if you ask Raptr. The 10 million-strong social network for gamers has issued another report based on the data it gathers from its users, and it doesn't look pretty.

Well, it's not looking pretty for Zynga, at least. Raptr found that a whopping 50 percent of The Sims Social players are also playing Zynga's games. More importantly, play time for both FarmVille and Empires & Allies has dropped 25 percent since EA launched its secret weapon, while CityVille dipped just 10 percent in play time. The latter is thanks to a number of promotions and major content additions like the recent Enrique Iglesias event and the ongoing Governor's Run goals.

Still, that means 33 million Zynga fans are playing both The Sims Social and the top Zynga games. (Keep in mind, this study was conducted before Adventure World surpassed FarmVille.) So, how did EA do it? Well, aside from attracting a swath of Zynga game players, the company marketed heavily to its existing social game players and even the 10 million remaining The Sims 3 fans on the PC. As a result, The Sims Social has effectively cannibalized EA's own player base, according to Raptr.
Raptr Report The Sims Social
As for how EA can strike gold again on Facebook, Raptr suggests the company looks at its most recent buy: PopCap. According to the study, social versions of the publisher's core franchises like Dragon Age Legends didn't do so hot. (Who woulda' thunk it?) But the social network finds that anywhere from around 58 to 75 percent of those who enjoy PopCap casual games also play social games.

In other words, EA is sitting on the weapons cache of a lifetime, but after Zynga Unleashed, it's clear that Zynga plans to return fire. Find the full report from Raptr right here in PDF form.

Are you a Zynga game player that has also been sucked into The Sims Social? Do you think EA will attract even more Zynga fans through PopCap and Playfish?

The Sims Social explodes, the third most played Facebook game daily

Wait, so this is where my mom was during this weekend's mess? The Sims Social, the ambitious social version of EA's massive franchise by Playfish London, has grown into the third most played social game on Facebook. Better yet, that measure is through daily players, which is far more telling of a game's success early on than monthly players. As of now, according to AppData, The Sims Social enjoys over 7.2 million daily players.

More importantly, that beats out two more of Zynga's most popular games, Empires & Allies and Zynga Poker. The game already surpassed Pioneer Trail last week, and now EA as a little over a million daily players to go to become the first Facebook game to trump FarmVille in a very, very long time, if ever. (The game begins to flinch a bit at 8.4 million daily players.)

Of course, The Sims Social is a far cry from the behemoth that is CityVille, but hot diggity is it gaining fast. Yes, use of the word "diggity" is deemed appropriate in such impressive circumstances. Remember, this is especially significant considering the game got off to a rocky start, with outages and performance issues aplenty upon its release. If anything, it speaks volumes to the fact that this brand may have found new life on Facebook, and everyone else better watch out.

Do you think The Sims Social could surpass FarmVille in daily players? How's about ... CityVille? Sound off in the comments. 2 Comments

Playfish says goodbye to Hotel City, My Empire and four more games

Playfish games shut down
The Sims Social might have dethroned the mighty FarmVille, but its success may have cut into Playfish's other Facebook games and sent them to a speedier doom, too. On August 30th, the word went out in the official Playfish forums that Hotel City, My Empire, Who Has The Biggest Brain?, Geo Challenge, Word Challenge and Bowling Buddies will be getting axed Sept. 30.

We used to cover Hotel City back in the day (the game first launched on March 26, 2010) and can remember when it was a big deal. The game was well made and had once held an all-time high of 13 million monthly players and 3 million daily players. Right now, it's at 1.4 million monthly players and about 100,000 dailies, ranking it the 9th most-played Playfish and EA game on Facebook. But it's clear that won't be enough to save it.

Hotel City's popularity is followed closely by Bowling Buddies, Word Challenge, then Geo Challenge. Finally, far beneath them all on the social games ladder are Who Has The Biggest Brain? and My Empire. Though, at least one player suspects it may not be all about numbers, because Country Story currently ranks 10th behind Hotel City. But there's been no announcement to shut it down (yet).

Are you going to miss any of these Playfish games? Care to start a betting pool on the death of Country Story? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment