Inside Social Games’ chart for monthly users of Facebook games reveals that US-based digital media and social game developer Digital Chocolate has managed to grow the user-base of its Millionaire City game by 800,000 users in a typically quiet month for the platform.
The increase in monthly users pushes Digital Chocolate past developers Playfish and PopCap to take seventh place in the chart. EA founder Trip Hawkins established Digital Chocolate in 2003 and has since developed a number of mobile and PC games including Tower Bloxx.
As the site notes, the Christmas period traditionally sees a drop-off in users but Millionaire City, a real-estate management game, has managed to buck the trend.
Zynga, which occupies the top six positions with its games, saw losses of over one million users for all of its titles in the past month with the exception of FrontierVille which grew by 88,000 users. US-based developer Funzio witnessed the biggest growth of all games with an increase of 3.5 million users for its Mafia Wars-style game Crime City.
Inside Social Games suggests the sophistication of new Facebook games is contributing to the presence of new titles in the chart, as older titles experience “the natural decline of age”.