Electronic Arts today announced that it is retiring three of its popular Facebook games, including The Sims Social, SimCity Social and Pet Society.
The online gaming news site Gamasutra calls the move a surprise, but notes that some developers are making a bigger push into mobile games versus browser-based games.
“After millions of people initially logged in to play these games, the number of players and amount of activity has fallen off,” EA wrote in a statement. “For people who have seen other recent shutdowns of social games, perhaps this is not surprising.”
The company is not tossing in the towel completely on Facebook games, and it is encouraging game players to check out the titles from PopCap, the Seattle games studio it acquired in July 2011 for up to $1.3 billion. (This post has been corrected to reflect the proper date of acquisition). Those titles include Bejeweled Blitz, Solitaire Blitz and the recently-announced Plants vs. Zombies Adventures.
“For players who have enjoyed our games, we will be making a special offer to introduce you to a PopCap game,” the message from EA said. You’re a valued fan and we want to make sure you get a smooth transition to PopCap.”
The company did not say when the offer would occur, but the shut down of the three titles will occur on June 14. The company added in a games forum about The Sims Social:
“We know that you may be disappointed by this. Retiring games is never easy, we hope you’ve enjoyed playing The Sims Social as much as we enjoyed making it. Thank you to all of our passionate and dedicated players for supporting The Sims Social. We hope to see you in some of our other titles on Facebook and other platforms.”
