For more than a year, I have consistently tracked the Mafia Wars Application Statistics. Throughout the year we have helplessly watched the player attrition rate continue to grind. The past 30 days are no exception and I wonder if and when the numbers will ever stabilize. I've lost hope for a proliferation of new players as the game is now way too complicated and busy. The only hope we have to prevent Mafia Wars from suffering a slow and quiet death is player retention. How many of us are going to stay? Until we see a baseline instead of a downward slope, we won't know the answer. About a year ago, Mafia Wars was in the Top 10 Applications on Facebook.
(all graphs and images are modified. The originals are from All Facebook)
Fast forward to today and you have to scroll through a few pages just to find it in the number 62 positions.
Here are the Monthly and Daily Active User graphs from last year. The spikes represent the launch of Las Vegas. The baselines were over 18 million Monthly Active Users and over 4 million Daily Active Users.
The graphs which represent the past 30 days show no signs of stabilization and make one wonder how much lower the numbers will go. If the current trend continues, we should have less than a million daily players left.
Zynga as a company really doesn't have much to worry about. Three of their games are in the Top 10 Applications and CityVille is #1.
Will Zynga care enough to do what it takes to keep Mafia Wars alive? Is there enough incentive to do so? They have done a good job in making themselves more accessible to the players and have dramatically improved on the flow of information. The Player Advisory Committee was an excellent concept and we saw a lot of progress and improvements in the beginning. Soon less and less was asked and many lost interest (including Zynga). There are plans to revamp the PAC and bring in more players but it's not going to work unless Zynga devotes the time and takes the actions that are necessary.
Comments are moderated and won't appear right away. For faster feedback to your questions, comment on the Fan Page referenced below.
i am not surprised that MW is still loosing players; i cannot buy Game Cards for weeks (or month?) now, and when i try to buy by Credit Card, i get an application error; my friend tries now for more than a month to buy RP's, Support cannot help and the Purchasing dept. doesn't react - now he is loosing steps in his Loyalty Program, because he cannot buy RP's - what is going on here?
ReplyDeleteI wish all would go to hell and this game would stay where it is for at least 6 months.
ReplyDelete6 months no updates, no new spam, no new events.
And remove 3 energy packs a day! 1 a day (whenever you want)would be OK or 6 mini were also very good option. Remove toolbar bonuses.
This game as it is is way too much to do!
It was way more fun when I leveled 1-2 a day than now when I level up to 10 times a day.
Make this game simple and enjoyable again or we'll all quit soner or later!
tq
sell your accounts now!!!! or be stuck with as useless pile of junk :D
ReplyDeletewell, it is a facebook game after all, nothing to get worked up about, for some time it was while there was nothing to do at work, now perhaps it is time to move unto greener pastures, google+...
ReplyDeleteInstead of wasting your money on a free fb game try investing in a ps3 or xbox
ReplyDelete