Despite its tremendous impact on Facebook gaming, the most popular Facebook game of 2011 wasn't made by Zynga. They didn't make the second most popular either, according to Facebook.
But Farmville and CityVille makers Zynga, which went public on the stock market this week, still managed to have four of their games in the top ten list released this week.
Facebook says that their list of the most popular games of the year was compiled by looking at the top games on the social network site with more than 100,000 monthly active users and "giving priority to those games with the highest user satisfaction scores." The result, they says, is a list of the games that received the most user recommendations in 2011.
Most popular games in 2011
Gardens of Time (By Playdom)
The Sims Social (By EA)
Cityville (By Zynga)
DoubleDown Casino (by DoubleDown Interactive)
Indiana Jones Adventure World (By Zynga)
Words With Friends (By Zynga)
Bingo Blitz (By Buffalo Studios)
Empires & Allies (By Zynga)
Slotomania-Slot Machines (By Playtika)
Diamond Dash (By wooga)
Facebook created a bunch of other interesting gaming lists as well, which I've included below.
Top up-and-comers
Battle Pirates (By Kixeye)
Dragons of Atlantis (By Kabam)
Gourmet Ranch (By Rock You!)
* Based on new games which drew the highest engagement in the 100k-500k user category
Top games with 50,000-100,000 users
Super Slot Machines (By Davy Campano, David Livingston Kirby and Robby Campano)
WestWars (By Innogames)
MouseHunt (By HitGrab)
* Based on the most engaging apps with audiences between 50k-100k users
Top Casino Games in 2011
Zynga Poker (By Zynga)
Slotomania – Slot Machines (By Playtika)
DoubleDown Casino (By DoubleDown Interactive)
* Based on casino-related games with the most monthly active users in 2011
Top Sports Games in 2011
TopEleven – Be a Football Manager (By Nordeus)
Pool Live Tour (By Geewa)
EA Sports: FIFA Superstars (By EA)
* Based on sports-related games with the most monthly active users in 2011
Top Fashion Games in 2011
Mall World (By 50 Cubes)
ItGirl (By CrowdStar)
Coco Girl (By Metrogames)
* Based on fashion-related games with the most monthly active users in 2011
Top Games on Facebook in 2011 [Facebook]