Gardens of Time is Facebook’s most popular game, according to the social network.
The hidden-object title (with social elements), created by Playdom, a subsidiary of Disney, topped the charts, beating Cityville, Social Sims and Doubledown Casino.
However, a row has erupted over the rankings. Technology site TechCrunch wrote an article questioning the list, pointing out that CityVille, Zygna’s hugely popular city-building simulation game, has more than 100 million monthly active users (MAU) and 21 million daily active users (DAU), compared to Garden of Time’s 17 million MAU and 4 million DAU.
The discrepancy comes from Facebook calculating the list based on recommendations, not active users. TechCrunch opined:
"It’s almost as if Facebook used its cloudy methodology to keep Zynga from completely dominating the list, as the Mark Pincus machine currently owns all 5 Facebook games with the most DAU and still ended up with 4 of the top 10 spots on Facebook’s list."
In response, Facebook posted an update explaining its methodology.
"This list was compiled by looking at the top games on Facebook with more than 100,000 monthly active users and giving priority to those games with the highest user satisfaction scores. The result is a list of the games that received the most user recommendations in 2011."
Zygna should not be too disheartened, though. The San Francisco-based company, which made more than $600 million last year, still occupies four of the top ten positions, with Indiana Jones Adventure World, Words With Friends and Empires & Allies all making the cut.
Here’s the full list of Facebook’s Top 10 games of 2011:
- Gardens of Time (Playdom)
- The Sims Social (EA)
- Cityville (Zynga)
- Doubledown Casino (Doubledown Interactive)
- Indiana Jones Adventure World (Zynga)
- Words With Friends (Zynga)
- Bingo Blitz (Buffalo Studios)
- Empires & Allies (Zynga)
- Slotomania-Slot Machines (Playtika)
- Diamond Dash (Wooga)