Zynga’s Cafe World goes from 0 to 8.6 million users in a week and Friendster shifts their focus towards social gaming.

The increasing importance of social gaming is starting to take center stage. The world of  gaming is held in increasing sway by Zynga (facebook) and Playdom (Myspace) . Despite the rapid growth in audience of these games many of the games bear striking resemblance to each other. This is not just in reference to Zynga’s lawsuit against Playdom over its mobsters product.

This trend continued this week as Zynga looks on track to beat records for fastest growing Facebook app. Cafe World has climbed from 0 users to a whopping 8.6 million users in just a week according to Appsdata. This overshadows even Farmville’s growth and sets Cafe World well on the path to claiming the top spot. The game is also creating speculation as to its effect on Playfish’s Restaurant City. Restaurant city is currently the 11^th largest Facebook app and it will be interesting to see if Zyngas latest title will put a damper on its growth. The release of Farmville had the effect of stopping the growth of Slashkey’s Farm Town. This raises several questions: Will Zynga do the same to Playfish?  How loyal are players to the brand of game? How far can the numbers of users grow with this apparent lack of innovation?

The growth of users of Facebook games which lack variety seems to suggest a strong desire which could be further capitalized upon. Struggling social media sites are already making moves in that direction. In fact this week Friendster, which has been losing ground in recent years to its younger competitors such as Facebook and Myspace, has announced that it is shifting its focus towards social gaming. Speculation has centered around Friendster copying the model used by hi5 in creating their own virtual currency and partnership with game developers.

The growth of users in social games is dramatically increasing and social networks are beginning to take notice and change their business models to accommodate it. When combined with what appears to be a stagnation in game innovation leaves the social game market ripe for explosive change.

Tagged as: Guest Writer