SimCity & Sims Social: Disappearing For Good
This was sudden and very unfortunate news for Facebook gamers world-wide, particularly those who love playing SimCity, Sims Social and Pet Society created by Playfish (technically now owned by EA).
As announced two days ago over at Playfish forums, a EA community manager announced throughout various important posts that SimsCity Social in mid June will shut down. Now according to more news, it turns out Sims Social AND Pet Society will also be discontinued , simply like it is no big deal despite each game has millions of dedicated players and met required target audiences in relation to financial demand goals; thus causing a public outcry amongst the fans and a wave of sadness, anger and confusion amongst them. I myself am pretty saddened by this news as I once had great fun playing Sims Social, so this was completely unexpected.
All Playfish games that are to disappear this Spring/Summer will require all players with redeemed Playfish cash and in-game currency who wish to spend it to do so now before time is up and the games officially become "retired", leaving unused virtual & real money useless.
As stated by EA on their announcement blog:
"Today we are informing players of the difficult decision to retire some of our Facebook games: The Sims Social, SimCity Social and Pet Society.
After millions of people initially logged in to play these games, the number of players and amount of activity has fallen off. For people who have seen other recent shutdowns of social games, perhaps this is not surprising."
As if the announcement wasn't depressing enough to Facebook gamers, EA casually has offered them a "smooth transaction" over to PopCap games (makers of Bejeweled Blitz & Plants vs. Zombies) as a replacement and apology for what has happened.
To be fair, I'm highly sceptical of what has suddenly happened to what I believed to be highly successful social networking games. I just don't understand how they can drastically fail this badly and are being dropped without a care in the world. Surely another game publisher company can pick these games up and continue them on? What about Playfish and the staff members? They were doing so well before EA came along, I'm sure they'd be able to handle everything on their own terms just as once before.
Electronic Arts is welcoming themselves to become the most hated and looked down upon video game publisher company there is in industry history. Seriously, the amount of stunts they are pulling isn't amusing in the slightest and I can only hope these much loved games are saved before it's too late...
As announced two days ago over at Playfish forums, a EA community manager announced throughout various important posts that SimsCity Social in mid June will shut down. Now according to more news, it turns out Sims Social AND Pet Society will also be discontinued , simply like it is no big deal despite each game has millions of dedicated players and met required target audiences in relation to financial demand goals; thus causing a public outcry amongst the fans and a wave of sadness, anger and confusion amongst them. I myself am pretty saddened by this news as I once had great fun playing Sims Social, so this was completely unexpected.
All Playfish games that are to disappear this Spring/Summer will require all players with redeemed Playfish cash and in-game currency who wish to spend it to do so now before time is up and the games officially become "retired", leaving unused virtual & real money useless.
As stated by EA on their announcement blog:
"Today we are informing players of the difficult decision to retire some of our Facebook games: The Sims Social, SimCity Social and Pet Society.
After millions of people initially logged in to play these games, the number of players and amount of activity has fallen off. For people who have seen other recent shutdowns of social games, perhaps this is not surprising."
As if the announcement wasn't depressing enough to Facebook gamers, EA casually has offered them a "smooth transaction" over to PopCap games (makers of Bejeweled Blitz & Plants vs. Zombies) as a replacement and apology for what has happened.
To be fair, I'm highly sceptical of what has suddenly happened to what I believed to be highly successful social networking games. I just don't understand how they can drastically fail this badly and are being dropped without a care in the world. Surely another game publisher company can pick these games up and continue them on? What about Playfish and the staff members? They were doing so well before EA came along, I'm sure they'd be able to handle everything on their own terms just as once before.
Electronic Arts is welcoming themselves to become the most hated and looked down upon video game publisher company there is in industry history. Seriously, the amount of stunts they are pulling isn't amusing in the slightest and I can only hope these much loved games are saved before it's too late...
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