Best Facebook games of 2013

Over on the Facebook developer blog, the company has revealed its Game of the Year – Criminal Case, by Pretty Simple – along with top picks from the platform.

While at MyGaming we have a pretty core audience of gamers who might turn their noses up at Facebook games, there’s no escaping the fact that this is a huge segment of the industry.

As web platforms become ever-more advanced (consider that Unity and Unreal can be run from within a browser window), we might start seeing some pretty compelling titles delivered through social sites such as Facebook.

Facebook’s top games of 2013 were selected based on user ratings, Facebook implementation, growth, and overall quality, explained Facebook developer AJ Glasser. While one game was selected as the best of 2013, the rest of the list was left unranked.

Facebook also introduced a Staff Favorites category and a Hall of Fame category for the games that launched earlier than 2013, but remain popular with Facebook gamers.

According to Facebook, out of a total 23 games:

10 come from studios based in Europe or the Middle East;
8 are cross-platform, integrating with Facebook on web and mobile;
8 were developed by indie studios;
7 are mid or hardcore games; and
5 are arcade games.

Facebook Game of the Year 2013

Criminal Case by Pretty Simple

This hidden object game from a French indie studio combines crime scene investigation with sharing mechanics to create the most successful Facebook game of the year. As detailed in our case study of the game, Open Graph stories, featuring visceral artwork, drove organic growth for the game throughout the first half of the year. Content updates and additional cases drove more growth for the game in the second half of the year.