Facebook is today revealing which are the top 25 best-rated games of 2012, meaning the games that received the highest star ratings from players, as well as engagement levels, over the course of this year.
Not that the year is over already or anything, but you know.
Notably, the list was compiled employing the same methodology used to rank apps in Facebook’s App Center, which means it is based on both star ratings by users, positive and negative user signals and engagement levels between the date range (January-November 2012).
The list below takes into account games that launched in 2012 on Facebook.com, as well as mobile games integrated with Facebook. It only includes games with at least 100,000 monthly active Facebook users.
Facebook says this year’s list makes for the “most diverse and global year” for social games to date, thanks to the emergence of entirely new categories of games, immersive gameplays and games that were developed by companies around the globe – big and small.
Without further ado, below are the top 25 best-rated social games of 2012 according to Facebook users (whether on the Web or games built on top of Facebook for iOS and Android). We’ve added some thoughts and findings below the list.
1. SongPop (by FreshPlanet, available on Facebook.com, iOS and Android)
2. Dragon City (by Social Point, available on Facebook.com)
3. Bike Race (by Top Free games, available on iOS)
4. Subway Surfers (by Kiloo, available on iOS and Android)
5. Angry Birds Friends (by Rovio, available on Facebook.com)
6. FarmVille 2 (by Zynga, available on Facebook.com)
7. Scramble with Friends (by Zynga, available on iOS)
8. Clash of Clans (by Supercell, available on iOS)
9. Marvel: Avengers Alliance (by Playdom, available on Facebook.com)
10. Draw Something (by Zynga, available on iOS and Android)
11. Hay Day (by Supercell, available on iOS)
12. Baseball Heroes (by Syntasia, available on Facebook.com)
13. ChefVille (by Zynga, available on Facebook.com)
14. CSR Racing (by NaturalMotion Games, available on iOS)
15. Candy Crush Saga (by King.com, available on Facebook.com and iOS)
16. Matching With Friends (by Zynga, available on Facebook.com)
17. Legend Online (by OASIS GAMES, available on Facebook.com)
18. Jurassic Park Builder (by Ludia, available on Facebook.com)
19. Dungeon Rampage (by Rebel Entertainment, available on Facebook.com)
20. Pockie Ninja II Social (by NGames Limited, available on Facebook.com)
21. Jetpack Joyride (by Halfbrick, available on Facebook.com)
22. Social Empires (by Social Point, available on Facebook.com and iOS)
23. Bil ve Fethet (by Peak Games, available on Facebook.com)
24. Ruby Blast Adventures (by Zynga, available on Facebook.com and iOS)
25. Pyramid Solitaire Saga (by King.com, available on Facebook.com)
What you’ll notice is that the top 5 best-rated games of this year weren’t made or published by any of the 25 top developers according to the AppData leaderboard (based on monthly active users), except for Barcelona, Spain-based Social Point.
Aside from Zynga, only three game developers, namely Social Point, King.com and Supercell, have more than one game on the best-rated social games list.
Zynga, the top developer across the board in terms of monthly active players (still according to AppData) only comes in at #6 with FarmVille 2. We should note, however, that Zynga has an impressive six of the top rated games on Facebook this year, and it is also the only one with more than two games in the list altogether.
Be that as it may, music trivia game SongPop from NYC-based FreshPlanet was apparently the crowd favorite this year, with social mobile games Dragon City (Social Point) and Bike Race (Top Free Games) coming in at second and third place, respectively.
The amazing thing is FreshPlanet is quite young and nimble, and has only created four games so far. Definitely one to watch.
Taking a step back to look at things from a distance, Facebook notes that it was “the most international year for social games”.
The majority of top rates games came from outside the United States, ranging from France, Spain and the United Kingdom to Brazil, South Korea, Australia, and Turkey, the social networking giant says.
According to Facebook, 56 percent of the games are available on Facebook.com, while the remaining 44 percent are social mobile games (available on iPhone, iPad and Android).
Image via marismith / Flickr
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.