While the sudden smash hit Draw Something saw massive downloads over the past couple of months, studies show that is not exactly translating into active users. According to App Data, daily active users have been in sharp decline since the beginning of April.
Originally developed by Omgpop, the company was bought up by Zynga in March, soon after their rapid success. They peaked at about 15 million daily active users, but since then it has all been downhill. Current estimates are at about 10 million DAU. Still a respectable number, but not exactly what Zynga was looking for.
They have dropped to 7th and 8th in top downloaded free apps and top gross apps respectively on the iTunes store. At the beginning of the month, they held the number one position easily. They were touted as the fastest growing app in history, with 50 million downloads in 50 days. They have since been overtaken by Angry Birds Space in this category as well, with 50 million in 35 days.
Having played the game myself, I can see why people are turned off after only playing for a short time. The list of words to draw is very short, so the same ones keep cropping up over and over again. Advertising for the free version is way to intrusive, make you view an ad for what seems like an eternity, before going on to the next drawing. To top it off, the reward system is all screwed up. The idea is that you buy new colors with credits you earn by drawing and guessing correctly. Only it takes way too long to acquire a new color palate. By the time you have enough coins, you have drawn the same thing multiple times, making a new palate unnecessary.
Just my two cents.
