Facebook made a seemingly small change in March that had a painful effect on developers of social games. The company removed third-party notifications in order to make applications “more streamlined, clear, and less spammy for users.” Many game developers, like Zynga, relied on these messages to bring in repeat business and keep players hooked. Without the notifications, some players fell out of the loop and then left the games for good.
According to Inside Social Games’ monthly analysis, Zynga lost over 10 million players across their top eight titles. FarmVille alone lost over four million players, though that’s only a fraction of the 82 million player userbase. Zynga Poker and Petville bucked the trend and gained a little over a 100,000 players each.
The second largest Facebook title, Birthday Cards by RockYou, lost 5 million users of their 39 million player userbase. The same app lost 7 million users in the previous month. MindJolt Games took a big hit, suffering a 37% percent drop from a previous total of 21 million users.
It remains to be seen if developers can find new ways to keep users informed and enticed at a time when the market is seeing more and more competition. Sony Online jumped into the market earlier this week with The Agency: Covert Ops.
