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Draw Something has dislodged Zynga’s position as the top gaming app on Facebook, according to independent data.
The new game sensation, which brings Pictionary-like play to mobiles, browsers and tablets, is today the most popular gaming app on Facebook with 12.2 million daily active users (DAU) recorded.
Words With Friends, which gave its operator Zynga a spell dominance on the Facebook app chart, now sits behind the new trailblazer with 8 million DAU.
Zynga’s CityVille remains the number one Facebook game if measured by Monthly Active Users (MAUs), though by DAUs it sits in third place.
The financial success of Draw Something has fast become a matter of intense speculation. It is believed the game’s creators – the New York based Omgpop – is making more than $100,000 in revenue with the game.
At the time of going to press, Draw Something is the number one App Store item on all iPhone and iPad charts, including ‘Top Paid’, ‘Top Free’ and ‘Top Grossing’.
The game tasks players with guessing a word by observing a simple image drawn by their chosen partner.
In the same style as Words With Friends, Draw Something uses a ‘message in a bottle’ system that sends a sketch to players, even if they are thousands of miles apart, that people can view at their convenience.
A surge of user activity is testing the game’s servers to their limits. By Friday, as many as 3,000 finger-drawn images were being sent each second, according to the New York Times.
The game is being played daily by about half of its 30 million users, the report adds, with some two billion sketches already shared and guessed on.
“For a long time, we made games that did not get any traction,” said Dan Porter, the chief executive at Omgpop.
Porter is paraphrased as saying the company now generates as much cash per day as it used to make per month.
The studio, which has been in operation for about four years, had previously struggled to make any traction on the App Store with previous attempts such as Cupcake Corner, a bakery simulation, and Puppy World, a Nintendogs-like game.
Draw Something launched as a web game designed for browsers and reportedly was an initial struggle for Omgpop. Omgpop initially raised $17 million in VC financing that, just before Draw Something ignited on iOS, was in threat of running dry.
