EA's The Sims Social Steals Facebook Gamers from Zynga

It seems like Electronic Arts' new social game, The Sims Social, is a success. Not only is it the No. 2 game on Facebook after only two months at 66 million active monthly users, secondly only to Zynga's CityVille, but it's already siphoning off about a quarter of Zynga's use, according to a study.

Raptr, a social network gamers, said that The Sims Social has stolen 10 to 25 percent of Zynga's playtime on Facebook, according to the Los Angeles Times. From the article:

FarmVille players, for example, reduced their time on the game by 25% on average when they started to play The Sims Social, Raptr found. In addition, about half of the 66 million people who played The Sims Social in the last 30 days were Zynga players, Raptr estimated.

However, it's not all good news for EA. The success of the Sims Social also means it's attracting users from other EA properties, such as Bejeweled Blitz. (EA bought PopCap Games and its stable of titles for $1.3 billion earlier this year.)

Will Zynga release a knock-off social game or come up with more innovative social gaming fare to compete? (We would probably lean to the former.) Either way, EA has made its presence known in the social gaming field and won't surrender its hard-won second place lightly.

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