The last time I reviewed the Mafia Wars application statistics was on Jan 9th (1). There was negative growth (a statistical nice term for not as many people are playing) in both the Daily and Monthly Active Users category and Mafia Wars was #9 on the Application Leader Board. All charts and numbers are from the All Facebook Application Statistics Page.
Jan 9th
Now on to today. It's rather disturbing to see the "growth" for the past month. Retention of the Daily Users isn't as bad as that for the Monthly Users. There were less daily players not playing this month than there were last for last month. These charts say a lot about the direction in which Zynga is heading. All the changes and additions may be too much for the casual player to handle. This may be a sign that Zynga needs to slow down and give the players a chance to catch up or they will continue to accept defeat and stop playing.
Feb 10th
In one months time, Mafia Wars dropped from the #9 Facebook Application to #23.
| Article written by Jennifer Patterson, Creator of the MW Loot Lady Blog, The Mafia Wars Loot Lady Facebook Fan Page and Co-Host of The Informant Podcast. |
Thanks for the info, Darlin'... I have suspected this for sometime now, and in a lot of my posts critical of MW, I predicted this.... My contention is that the changes to the original game, along with the continued begging events and the emphasis on fighting (after a lot of loyal players had geared their characters towards job completion and energy intensive stats) produced a swell of negative karma among those same players.
ReplyDeleteWell, that's their payoff for the Fight Club nerf and the beloved spam events...
ReplyDeleteMW is simply over it's zenith, let's face it. Zynga is very quick to make their game known to every user on facebook, but as soon as this has happened, there will be a steady decline of users, since it's hard to get new ones and old ones are getting bored/dissatisfied over time.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that all the Zynga games appear to be on a down turn - that should give them cause for thought! Maybe they're spamming the users a little too much??
ReplyDeleteI've said this before, the reason Cityville skyrocketed was because they pretty much lured all the players from their other games to go play that one and now that it's apparent there is nothing to be gained from Cityville people are abandoning it.
In my opinion its because of too much post spamming and gifting...there is very little right now you can achieve without spamming your wall full of requests for this and that and its been quite a long time since there was some event which was not gift-based...MW turned from a click GAME to a SPAM event...this is killing it...more emphasis on jobs or fighting and/or getting things you need by yourself and not by others is required...gifts that others give you should be a BONUS, but not a definite REQUIREMENT for you to complete a event (not counting RP which most players do not have), same goes with building materials for armory/zoo, they should make them drop from fights/jobs, ok, at a slow rate, but not only though posts and begging for gifts like some beggar! a mafiaso would do things by himself or by some very close family and not by begging 500 or more other people for stuff which he could get by himself (but is not allowed to)...this isn't MW anymore, just another Zynga virus spam festival...
ReplyDeleteAfter 2 years and playing with 2 fun clans, I don't play anymore because they turned a great game into Gifting Wars. Bleck. Having to beg constantly for 30+ pigs, parachutes, Dr. Dre junk, etc. each and every day for whatever special mission of the week or loot prize of the week and then sort through dozens of gift requests? Missions that require you to be on the clock every 8 hours or you can't complete them? They took and enjoyable game and turned it into a full time job.
ReplyDeleteWell with the changing of the fight club, adding more mission where item cost gift,s loyalty chart changes, i feel the game is going down hill any way, They spend more time keeping every thing a secret then making the players want to play. so you tell me, what did zynga expect. did they really think the players were just going to keep going like this. I feel bad, many people have invested Time, money, and their lives to play and enjoy this game, and zynga is taking it a way one peice at a time
ReplyDeletesee the whole problem with this data is that zynga can take it as one of two ways.
ReplyDelete1) Negative to Zynga: blowback from making italy substantially harder to get through by making pretty much nothing giftable (they've relented a bit on that ...lately although it still sucks), the ridiculous amounts of stamina that is to be spent completing the fight jobs/ fight paths for ONE skill point, "random" dropping top loot, etc.
2) Positive to Zynga: Zynga knows a good porportion of players have energy accounts and probably a good percentage have multiple energy accounts, whether for themselves or for trading/selling. By making italy nongiftable, they put a throttle on the traders/sellers, as well as get more accurate tally of actual players for marketing purposes and developement resource allocation. (ie if theres nothing for me to gain by daily playing an energy account, do i continue to waste time doing so?)
Both of these views would contribute substantially to the drastic declines evidenced by the charts..
I have invested a lot of time and MONEY in my Mafia Wars character. I did so to build myself up to a level (level 1890) where I wouldn't be the little fish in the pond anymore. Suddenly Zynga changes the rules so that your level has little or nothing to do with whether you win a fight or not... It's now based on your stat's! NOT FAIR! I have basically spent my money to buy a product that is not what I purchased originally... Angry is not the word I would choose to describe how I feel about this... DUPED would be a better choice. Wish I could sell my account and get out completely.
ReplyDeleteill give ya $14 for it..
ReplyDeletethat shit was funny haha
ReplyDeleteI've been playing for a couple years and, hate to tell you this, it has ALWAYS been about stats. Probably should have done some research before reaching for the credit card.
ReplyDeleteYep. Nothing changed re the stats. Maybe the weapons are worth more than they used to be. But as far as I am aware MW was always a fighting game. I never played it to get through jobs or regions but to win fights. I wish there were more fighting events and less begging.
ReplyDeleteBesides all of the above excepting the one E-ho whining another thing is the earlier players had to work their way up. Now it is all open for anyone to get to including the cities with 3x mastery to make it so anyone starting today could feasibly be very high stats in 6mos versus years. This is not grade school and everyone is not equal and everyone is not a *Winner*.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise why keep *score*?
FAIL!
ReplyDeleteThey lost 455,822 within the last 2 days... (02/10-02/12)
it used to be a super game, enjoy trading, try to work hard to get best 501 items.. now why should i??? in max 2 months all work is useless
ReplyDeletekeep this way zyngos and soon everyone will delete the application from there facebook