CityVille on Facebook reaches 22 million, rivals real world's largest cities

When Zynga recently mentioned that CityVille is the company's fastest growing social game it was no joke. According to Inside Social Games, the game has reached 22 million monthly players as of this morning (in less than two weeks), which would make it a faster growing game than not only FrontierVille, but all Zynga games--including FarmVille-- to date. And if this insane growth is possible after Facebook shut down nearly all viral channels for social games, there is only one question to ask: How?

The Zynga Name
Well, let's start from the beginning. Zynga already has an established reputation for social gaming being connected to FarmVille alone, so that certainly helps. In other words, folks were just waiting for CityVille since we first heard word of it back in August. But it takes more than just a reputation to garner this much of a following so quickly.

Let's take this dissection behind the break and see how CityVille became the fastest-growing Zynga game ever.