14 DAY TRIAL // Video game company Zynga has announced that more than 148 million unique players are engaged with its title as of March 31, according to information that was made public as part of its application for an Initial Public Offering.
AppData, a measurement service that targets all Facebook applications, currently shows that there are more than 280 million gamers playing all the titles that Zynga has released on the platform, but the service does not take into account those who are playing multiple titles and those who might have multiple accounts for one game.
Zynga titles are also available on Apple-made mobile devices and the company counts those who play both on Facebook and a iPhone as separate entities.
Zynga says that during September 2009 about 63 million players were engaged with its games while March 2010 saw the number almost double to 124 million before dropping slightly to 111 before the end of 2010.
The big increase seen before the end of March 31 of this year is linked to the launch of new game CityVille, which managed to attract 100 million monthly active users after about one month on the market.
At the moment, CityVille draws the most players of any Facebook-based video games, at close to 90 million.
Zynga also has high hopes for the recently launched Empires & Allies.
The social game developer has usually been less than willing to talk about the number of people who are playing its games, but it has been forced to be more transparent by the fact that it is now aiming for IPO later in the year, which is expected to raise the funds needed to further develop its business.
Zynga titles have long been seen as being less engaging that normal video games because of their simple-to-understand mechanics and the constant intrusion of paying for some extra gameplay options.