How Diamond Dash's maker is poised to oust EA on Facebook

Joe Osborne
Updated
Diamond Dash
Diamond Dash

EA is no longer the second most popular Facebook game maker, according to at least one metric. A look at AppData's ranking of the top developers on the social network reveals that not one, but two game makers have more daily players than EA. New York-based OMGPOP's Draw Something has almost exclusively earned it 12.5 million daily players, and wooga, the German developer behind Diamond Dash, has garnered over 10 million daily players on Facebook.

EA and Playfish, by comparison, are home to just over 9 million daily players. Granted, EA still has more monthly players than both developers, with 48.9 million. That distances EA from OMGPOP's 23.4 million monthly players, but wooga is closing in--and fast--with 48.8 million monthly players. (Keep in mind that AppData also tracks mobile games that use Facebook Connect.)

If you ask some developers, like PopCap, daily players is a much more reliable measure of how deeply a developer has its claws dug into its player base. That said, whales--players that spend hundreds if not thousands on a given social game--are far more likely to be daily players than monthly. So, how is wooga on the cusp of overthrowing EA as the second biggest game maker on Facebook? Company CEO Jens Begemann had this to say to VentureBeat:

"Basically, if you know the theory of flow, the game has to be challenging but at the same time can't become too difficult. We ensure that people - from the very first moment on but also if they have played for a very long period of time - always feel challenged," Begemann told VentureBeat. "They always have the feeling that they are under control, and they can create their own experience. It's kind of similar to a triple-A title but obviously much more simple. It's really about all these small little improvements that make sure people come back over long periods of time."

Do you think that wooga can ultimately become the number two Facebook game maker? What can and should EA do about it? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.

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