EA to Kill Facebook Sims Social

EA is closing down not one but three of the Facebook/Social games that its subsidiary Playfish has developed. All three titles will shut on the same day: June 14th. No refunds on in-game currency will be made.

The games are:

The Sims Social
Sim City Social
Pet Society

EA bought developer Playfish in 2009 as a counter to the perceived threat from Zynga. It paid $275 million. In 2011 Playfish COO Sebastien de Halleux and technology lead Sami Lababidi both left.

Now, according to EA, "The decision to retire older EA games is never an easy one to make but in order to re-allocate servers and resources to more popular titles we are removing The Sims Social from Facebook. Players who still have a balance of in-game currency are encouraged to spend it before the game is shut down on 14th June and is no longer available for play."

All this makes departing CEO John Riccitiello's 2010 slap at Zynga sound more hollow than it did then. Back then he said, "Zynga has a chance that ‘Farmville’ will stand the test of time successfully, but it’s far from clear to me that that’s a certainty."



OUCH!