After its launch, EA's
The Sims Social rocketed to the top of the Facebook App charts, and currently sits only behind Zynga's ever-popular
CityVille. In a new report [
PDF], social gaming network Raptr explored the reasons for the game's rapid success.
The report points out that when marketing
The Sims Social, EA heavily targeted the existing
Sims 3 player base and its existing social game players, and many of these users ended up converting to the new social game.
With this conversion, however, EA has seen play time on games like
The Sims 3 and Playfish's
Pet Society drop by roughly 50 percent. Raptr also notes that play time for Zynga's
FarmVille and
Empires & Allies have dropped by 25 percent since
The Sims Social's debut.
Play time for
CityVille, however, has remained stable, which the report attributes to a number of Zynga's recent promotions and marketing efforts.
Raptr also noted that overall, the majority of
The Sims Social's player base also play Zynga games, indicating a huge overlap between EA's new title and Zynga's lineup.
The report notes that the
The Sims Social's play time patterns, which include average session length and average number of sessions per week, bear more resemblance to hit Zynga titles than they do EA's other social games like
Madden NFL Football and
Dragon Age Legends (the latter of which EA
reflected upon at this week's GDC Online).
In particular, Raptr notes that the average play session for
The Sims Social is 4.95 minutes -- just as long as the average session for Zynga's top games.
Reflecting on the data in the report, Raptr said that in order to replicate Zynga's success in the social space, EA should aim to release a steady stream of titles, with a high conversion rate between games.
(Image courtesy of Raptr)
