Farmville model of success

Before Cityville, there was Farmville. It was only released in July and in August of 2009, over 33 million people played it. What’s the secret of its success?

Maybe it’s just because it’s summer, but we seem to have got farming on our brains. Look at the top 25 games on Facebook in August.

That’s four farming games in the top 25, with Farmville at #1 and Farmtown at #3. Farmville is only two months old, but it had 33 million unique players in August.

Yes, you read that right. 33 million players.

According to ComScore (via TechCrunch), Facebook had 340 million unique visitors in June (although Facebook only acknowledges 250 millon), which means that around 10% of all Facebook users played Farmville last month.