Raptr report: Gamers play Zynga's 'Ville games almost as much as Halo

Wait a second, that's not possible. Zynga games are for casual players, aren't they? Well, maybe not as much as previously though. A report issued by Raptr, the social network for gamers, reveals that the 265 million fans of games like CityVille and FarmVille are playing those games almost as much as Halo players. More importantly, Raptr users are playing said games more than "core" game franchises like Grand Theft Auto, Assassin's Creed and Gears of Warcombined.

Raptr's report breaks down the top game franchises on the social network by time spent playing, as the service tracks whenever users enter a game and for how long they play. Zynga's stable of games tails top hardcore franchises like Call of Duty's massive 43 percent time share and Halo's 14 percent with 13 percent. The remaining 12 percent is reserved for other hardcore games.

According to the report, big time hardcore games like CoD and WoW are played for longer sessions at a time, but Zynga Facebook games such as Empires & Allies or Pioneer Trail are played more frequently. In fact, Raptr goes on to say that about 12 to 20 percent of CityVille players are also deep into games like StarCraft 2 and Call of Duty Black Ops. And the percentage of Xbox 360 owners that have played a Zynga game increased by 50 percent to a total of 30 percent, the report claims.

The data goes on to show that Zynga controls 60 percent of the market in social games, at least judging from Raptr's 10 million users. And before The Sims Social came along, the massive company's top games racked up three times as many hours as the rest of the top 10 Facebook games combined. Not to mention that Zynga fans are loyal: 90 percent of FrontierVille, Treasure Isle, CityVille, and Empires & Allies players were pulled from existing Zynga games.

While it almost goes without saying, Zynga is still killing it. More importantly for the company, however, is that reports like this will help instill confidence in its upcoming $1 billion initial public offering. With recent news that the company's profits plummeted 90 percent--and that The Sims Social has gobbled up most of its top games--made those prospects shaky.

[Via VentureBeat]

Do you happen to be a "hardcore gamer" that dabbles in Zynga games? Are you surprised at all by Raptr's findings? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.