GDC 2012: Zynga's Schappert shares Words with Friends statistics

In a Game Developers Conference talk on how to "capitalize on the Golden Age of Gaming," Zynga's COO John Schappert shared some statistics on the current number one Facebook game. "The more social your game is, the higher the engagement and retention," said Schappert. "We learned that one in 10 people who play Words with Friends have hooked up" -- hooked up here seeming to mean "met in real life." He shared some further statistics about the game's audience: - 63 percent play with close friends - 43 percent play with relatives - 82 percent feel more connected to friends and family - 62 percent reconnect with old friends - 74 percent make new friends These statistics were gleaned from user surveys. He also said that bringing the game to a huge number of platforms has been key to its growth. "Words with Friends went multiplatform and grew from 2 million daily active users to 9 million daily active users." It's the "biggest game on Facebook according to App Data and that doesn't include the mobile users," he said. "Enabling people to play Words with Friends on every device they have wherever they are has been the key to its success." "We want to get one billion people to play together," concluded Schappert. "We can't do that alone, we have to work together as an industry to make that happen."