Bubble shooters showing growth on Facebook

[Every other week, Gamasutra examines the fastest-growing Facebook games according to monthly active users, looking at which titles and developers are having the most success attracting new players on the social network.] Whenever a social game in a particular genre becomes a hit, plenty of developers rush to put out similar titles -- some past trends we've seen on Facebook include farming, hidden object, pet sims, city sims, etc. The latest trend appears to be Puzzle Bobble/Bust-a-Move-style puzzle games, likely brought about by the success of King.com's Bubble Witch Saga, which is currently the fifth most popular game on the social network based on its monthly audience. So while Zynga Bingo was the fastest growing game on Facebook last week with 2.8 million new monthly users and 3.8 million total, not far behind was the studio's crack at the bubble genre, Bubble Safari. That had 1.2 million new players and 2.3 million total. PlayQ's Bubble Blitz was the third top "gainer" last week with 900,000 new users and 2.1 million total. The next fastest growing games were King.com's Pyramid Solitaire Saga (900,000 new users; 2.1 million total) and Candy Crush Saga (700,000 new users and 3.5 million total), both of which are from the series spawned by Bubble Witch Saga. Then there's Cookapps' Buggle at #6, yet another bubble game, with 600,000 new monthly players and 3.8 million total. It's followed by Peak Games' Lost Bubble, which has half a million new users and 2.4 million total. The last three games in the top ten have nothing to do with bubbles: Disney/Playdom's Marvel: Avengers Alliance (500,000 new users; 9.4 million total), the Zynga portal (400,000 new users and 4.8 million total), and LOTUM Labs's Paint for Friends (200,000 new users; 4.8 million total). The full list of the top 20 fastest growing Facebook games along with exact monthly active user counts, are as follows: All charts and data are courtesy of Facebook application metrics and trends site AppData.