Analyst: Zynga Experiencing 'Difficult Time Driving User Growth'

A new analyst report has found that user growth for recent games from social games giant Zynga has been lacking, with certain recent releases already showing signs of peaking in player numbers. Doug Creutz and Jason Mueller at analyst group Cowen and Company noted that, while Zynga is by far the largest social games company on Facebook, it is having a "difficult time driving user growth" in recent months. The company has experienced its number of daily active users decline by 700,000 people to 46.9 million overall in the last five weeks. This compares to the 70 million DAUs the company had in February 2010. Several of the company's recently-launched core titles are already seeing numbers peak, while older titles continue to experience declines. Titles such as CityVille, Empires & Allies and Cafe World saw declines in user numbers, while more recent releases such as Pioneer Trail and Adventure World are already 50 percent of the way to their projected DAU highs. The report also noted that Zynga has had "essentially no growth in DAUs" since October 2009, which saw similar numbers to those which the company is currently experiencing. However, the company has been able to grow revenue since 2009 by increasing its monetization strategies, said the report. In comparison to other social game developers on Facebook, Electronic Arts' DAUs have declined by 3.5 million in the last five weeks to 14.6 million in total. EA reported this week its Sims Social Facebook game has 8 million DAUs. Meanwhile, DAUs for Disney's Playdom have dropped by half a million in the last five weeks to 4.3 million total. The company's Gardens of Time, released in April, has now "definitely peaked", said Cowen and Company.