Fastest growing Facebook games of the week: 'Social City' still upwardly mobile

For the third week running, Playdom's
Social City has been the fastest growing Facebook game, attracting the network's leisure-time users with its modern, community take on the classic Sim City town planning game.

No equivalent has been forthcoming from the most successful Facebook gaming company, Zynga - instead, they have been pushing out the straightforward poker game Poker Blitz, complimenting their other well-known but more technical card game, Texas HoldEm Poker (also known as Zynga Poker).

That said, the company have been polling their users to gauge just how popular Social City has become, asking quite candidly for estimates of time spent on the game.

This sort of information would enable Zynga to devote resources to constructing a Social City competitor in proportion to the likelihood that the company's userbase (and therefore income) are to defect to Playdom's trendy app.

It's Supermodel: The Game that's this week's hot new chart entry. Much like LOLapps' Diva Life, Supermodel: The Game is an aspirational game focusing on the glitz and glamor of celebrity life.

One of Supermodel's distinctive traits is its narrower focus on the modelling industry, and as such tries to inject elements of realism in with the escapism.

Another interesting feature is that the game proudly displays its affiliation to the fashion and modelling lifestyle website Modelinia.

Modelinia may be relatively new on the scene, having been launched in 2009, but its CEO and her fellow site founders are also heavliy involved in Full Picture, the production company that launched hit reality TV show Project Runway. So they are at least well versed in generating content that is appealing to young fashionistas and wannabe professional models.

Full Picture's desire to establish itself as a key new media company was one of the factors leading to the creation of Modelinia, and now it seems that Modelinia themselves are now using the appeal of Facebook games to entice readers to their own site, with its mix of celebrity gossip, fashion tips, and insider advice.

Top ten fastest growing Facebook games, Saturday March 27

1. Social City (9,063,567 = +1,993,791 / 22.0%)
2. Bubble Island (3,750,322 = +988,290 / 26.4%)
3. Supermodel: The Game (1,696,375 = +903,826 / 53.3%)
4. Tiki Resort (3,680,788 = +740,891 / 20.1%)
5. Poker Blitz (750,144 = +731,298 / 97.5%)
6. Mafia Wars (25,264,431 = +618,697 / 2.5%)
7. Zoo Paradise (1,433,733 = +539,001 / 37.6%)
8. Towner (1,713,623 = +431,341 / 25.2%)
9. Keyboard Mash! (1,619,818 = +355,515 / 22.0%)
10. PetVille (20,236,962 = +345,272 / 1.7%)
Source: appdata.com