Screenshot from Farmville 2

Caught playing Farmville 2 at work? You’re not the only one. Surprisingly, the Farm genre is the most played social gaming category on Facebook with almost 20 million daily active users, that is, people logging in to play every single day. The top ten Facebook genres, as collated by our Facebook analysis tool AppStats, throw up some unexpected entries but also see familiar developers leading in the fields.

The Bingo genre takes tenth place, with Zynga Slingo taking top game within the genre accruing 1.900,000 daily active users (DAU). Number nine sees a revival of the Restaurant genre with yet another Zynga game, Chefville, claiming pole position with 4.2 million DAU. At number eight, the Quiz genre, headed by SongPop developed by Freshplanet with 3.9 million daily active users.

With a total of 7.572.831 DAU, Strategy and Combat games come in at seventh place. This genre sees fairly high monetization rates and the top game, Social Empires, sees Spanish developer Social Point get a look-in. The Poker genre holds sixth place with Zynga’s Texas HoldEm game claiming in excess of 6 million daily active users (DAU), almost 5 million more than its second placed rival.

At fifth place is the Word game genre. Word games can be played on or offline, without the need for sound and can be played during a short break at work. All of these factors have contributed to the increased popularity of such games illustrated by number one word game Words with Friends boasting 6 million daily active users.

The Slot Machine genre takes fourth spot with a total of just over 11.5 million DAU. This genre is an interesting one to watch. Such games are not regulated on Facebook and users do not play with real money. There is, however, high incentive for the company to start monetization of these games. In fact, the folks from Menlo Park have collaborated with UK developer Gamesys and launched a pilot project that sees a gambling game played with real money.

The Match-3 genre takes third place with 4.7 million DAU for top game Candy Crush Saga. This genre is fairly equally represented with various game developers compiling the top ten Match-3 games. The hugely popular Bubble Shooter games, unsurprisingly, take second place. They have proved a real hit and a number of developers showcase their games in this genre’s top ten. Zynga’s Bubble Safari shows DAU totaling an enormous 4.9 million.

Farming games are the surprise number one, with the genre attracting just under 20 million DAU. Zynga’s newly released Farmville 2 alone boasts 8.700,000 daily active users.