After 11 years, Zynga has announced the closure of the highly-popular farming game FarmVille by the end of the year. More specifically, the game will continue to be playable on Facebook until December 31st, 2020, while in-app purchases will still be accessible until November 17.
To mark the sad occasion, FarmVille will also be having in-game activities that you can participate in. Zynga made this hard decision as a result of Adobe’s own decision to stop updating and distributing Flash Player for all the web browsers. Consequently, Facebook also decided to stop supporting Flash games.
In their announcement, Zynga showed appreciation towards the community who stood by the franchise for more than a decade. FarmVille has been around since June 19th, 2009, and it has undergone sequel after sequel, namely FarmVille 2, FarmVille 2: Country Escape, FarmVille 2: Tropic Escape, and FarmVille 3.
The Facebook game is well-known for its addictive gameplay where you have to ask your friends for assistance for various things. The game peaked around March 2010, where it had 83.76 million monthly active users. However, this amount, unfortunately, continued to decline after 2011.
Without a doubt, FarmVille is Zynga’s most popular and most nostalgic game, but the developers also have other titles up their sleeves. Their library of games has been increasing as well, especially since Zynga was able to acquire multiple companies and their properties along with them.
As a matter of fact, Zynga acquired Peak Games earlier this year for $1.8 billion. The obtained company is known for creating games such as Toon Blast and Toy Blast. Without a doubt, the loss of FarmVille won’t really affect Zynga that significantly.
In fact, the California-based company even saw significant growth this year, most probably because of the COVID-19 pandemic where people had to stay home and play Facebook games. More specifically, the Zynga stock increased by up to 55.9%.
Among other games, Zynga is also known for working on the licensed title Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells, which was recently released only this week. This is a title that’s available on mobile devices, following the all-familiar Match-3 puzzle mechanics.
Of course, this might not be enough to satiate the Harry Potter fans until the release of Harry Potter: Hogwarts Legacy, but it’s definitely a great way to pass the time until the anticipated RPG title gets launched.
On the other hand, there are people who are against mobile gaming as well. One reason for this is the fact that these types of games usually have very simplistic gameplay. Plus, most mobile games have a tendency to intertwine monetization with the game’s mechanics, which can exploit those who have addictive personalities or children who don’t know any better.
That being said, the mobile game industry still continues to be profitable because of how accessible it is and how easy it is to develop.
As mentioned, you can still play FarmVille on Facebook until December 31, 2020. So, for nostalgia’s sake, check out the online game again while you still can or conclude any unfinished business you may have.
We’re definitely sad to see the game go, but we know that Zynga will have other titles planned for the future.
