Zynga’s Facebook Traffic Starts To Decline

Sites include Facebook.com , Zynga.com . Published on November 23rd, 2011. Written by Anthony West.

Less than a few weeks after Zynga launched its fastest growing one-week game, CastleVille, the popular social gaming developer seems to be taking a beating with its overall traffic on Facebook.

CastleVille currently has over 6.9 million daily active users. This figure helps to add up to the 49.5 million daily active users (DAU) currently enjoyed among all Zynga games on Facebook. The trouble is that a few months ago this overall figure was higher. In fact, before the launch of CastleVille, Zynga’s overall DAU was hovering below 49 million and stood at around 48.2 million.

These figures represent a downward trend for Zynga because in the second quarter, average DAU was 59 million. This number fell yet again in the third quarter to 54 million, leaving many to wonder if Zynga is losing its touch at the most critical point—its imminent IPO. Falling DAU numbers reduces the so-called level of ‘addiction’ that users have with the games and this addiction directly impacts the virtual goods that they buy with real-world money to drive the whole social gaming paradigm.

Zynga is not totally lost at sea however, and can reclaim much of these disenchanted users by launching new games—something which the company certainly has the capacity to do.

Is Zynga losing its overall appeal with social gamers? Share your thoughts with us below.