Top dog FarmVille now has competition...

When was the last time you were on Facebook? A couple of days ago? Unlikely. How about this morning? Looking more plausibile. What about a few minutes ago? Bingo! We have a wiener!

The Cyber Face would be willing to bet that, for a vast majority of you, the last time you were on Facebook was perhaps, at most, a few minutes ago. It has become an essential part of our cyber-based society, seemingly overnight. Can any of you remember what social networking was like... before Facebook (quiet mutterings of Myspace and Bebo whisper in your ear)?

As corny as this will sound, it is almost as important as the air that we breathe (albeit in a virtual format). Facebook is an all encompassing, all knowing machine. In many respects one could argue that it has overtaken the phone as the most dominant way to communicate with people. We know so much about one another it's, at times, crazy.

It will come as no surprise then to hear that over 200 million people use Facebook worldwide. It will also come as no surprise when you hear that games desingers take full advantage of the huge audience figures.

One name that will have some gravitas with all you casual, I'm-bored-at-work-and-I-need-something-to-do-gamers out there: FarmVille.
 Yes. It's a game that those from The Cyber Face have refused to play (unless under duress from... well, women). But you can't over look the games outrageous popularity. With approximately 32million daily users and 110million downloads the game is, with these figures, a complete blockbuster! Its figures obliterate all of the most popular (and more expensive) console games ones.


Many can spends days whittling away on their farms
to get it just right.

FarmVille is a gargantuan of a game. But it is only one in a string of 'ville' games that have been released.

Last week saw the introduction of a brand new ville game to the Facebook market, CityVille. The game, although only out for a week, has already smashed all previous ville game records, by a whopping margin.



In its first day alone, the game managed to pull in over 290,000 people- compared to just 116,000 people when FrontierVille was released.

The new game sees players construct their own, living breathing city (very similar to the SimCity franchise), with roads, skyscrappers and even bakeries!

Watch a video of CityVille here!

• After a week of play, more than 2.7 million CityVille homes have been built.
• Around 500,000 bakeries are cooking up fresh mince pies as you read.
• A staggering five million sections of road have been constructed!
• It is reported that there are now 1.2 million users

So with all the impressive figures, the jury is still out as to whether this new ville game can topple the giant that is FarmVille. Will people choose to move into the city from the country? We'll just have to wait and see. But what ever happens, developers Zynga have got to be laughing all the way to the bank... even if it is in one of the newly constructed, cyber cities.