Report - Mafia Wars 2 sheds 900,000 players

Zynga's follow-up to one of its most enduring and successful titles is reportedly under-performing.

Research firm AppData estimates over 900,000 players have stopped playing Mafia Wars 2 over the last four weeks - 36% of its player base. The casual gangster sim reached 2.5 million users in October .

Additionally, anonymous sources told Bloomberg the game had failed to generate expected sales

Industry analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan said other Zynga titles see 20% of their pl;ayers every day, while just 10% of Mafia Wars 2 fans turn up that frequently.

“All the old Mafia Wars guys who finished everything you could do came over here and said, ‘This is the same game with different missions.’ They are already tired of it, so they are dropping off. I think it’s a good case study for what can go wrong," the analyst noted.

Zynga is set to file its initial public offering shortly, with a goal of $1 billion. The social publisher saw increased revenue but reduced profits in the last quarter, and was the subject of a scandal over employee stock options It's latest effort, CastleVille, is the fastest-growing Facebook game so far.

Thanks, Kotaku