EA retiring 'older' Facebook games

Bad news for online gamers: Electronic Arts will be retiring several "older" online games, including those on social networking site Facebook, between April and June.

 

In an update, EA said it had to retire some of its older games, since fewer people play them once newer titles come out.

 

"The decisions to retire older EA games are never easy.  The development teams and operational staff pour their hearts into these games almost as much as the customers playing them and it is hard to see one retired.  But as games get replaced with newer titles, the number of players still enjoying the older games dwindles to a level - fewer than 1 percent of all peak online players across all EA titles - where it’s no longer feasible to continue the behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping these games up and running," it said.

 

EA said it would prefer that its engineering and IT staff "focus on keeping a positive experience for the other 99 percent of customers playing our more popular games."

 

The schedule of game shutdowns is as follows:

 

April 24:

JetSet Secrets for Facebook

 

May 13:

Madden Superstars for Facebook

NHL Superstars for Facebook

TMI Trivia for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch

 

June 14:

Pet Society for Facebook

SimCity Social for Facebook

The Sims Social for Facebook

 

A separate article on The Next Web quoted EA as saying the "number of players and amount of activity" for the games to be shut down in June "has fallen off."

 

However, The Next Web quoted EA as saying it will continue to deliver popular titles for Facebook, including games from PopCap, such as Bejeweled Blitz, Solitaire Blitz and the recently-announced Plants vs. Zombies Adventures.

 

All Things Digital also noted other game publishers like Zynga are in the same boat.

 

"The mechanics simply don’t work anymore if a lot of people aren’t playing them — after all, they are social games. If friends aren’t around to tend to your crops or visit your pet when you are away for too long, the games simply break down," AllThingsD said in January. — TJD, GMA News