FarmVille, the farming simulation and social network game originally playable on Facebook, will be shutting down this year.
In 2009, Zynga developed and published FarmVille, which was available as a Flash game through Facebook and MSN Games. It was a cutesy and cartoony farming simulator, and it allowed players to visit their friends' farms and to hire them to be farmhands. Actions like ploughing land, sowing seeds, feeding animals, buying items, and selling produce gave the player experience points, and levelling up unlocked new crops and animals.
When it launched, FarmVille was the most popular game on Facebook, and it defended that position for over two years. In March 2010, the game had a whopping 84 million monthly active players, and daily active players peaked at 34.5 million. I remember having my own farm on FarmVille, and playing it in the morning before school, so that once I got home, my strawberry fields would be ready to harvest and my chickens would have laid eggs. It was a real business venture, don't you know.
Developer and publisher Zynga announced the news that the game will be being deactivated in a post on its help page. Owing to Adobe's cessation of distribution and support for Flash Player for all web browsers, FarmVille will be "directly affected" and become unplayable, presumably. With FarmVille 2: Tropic Escape and FarmVille 2: Country Escape widely available for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Facebook Gaming, the company has chosen to continue with the sequels rather than move the original to a new platform.
Though saddening, this is to be expected, given just how much has changed over the course of FarmVille's lifetime. "We're aware that many of you have been with us since the very beginning, helping to build an incredible global community of players over the years who've enjoyed this game just as much as we have. For that we say thank you," said Zynga in the announcement. In-app purchases in FarmVille will be active until November 17, and the developer warns that no transactions of any sort will be possible after this date.
Officially, the sun will set on FarmVille for the last time on December 31st, 2020. Zynga encourages players to use their in-game currency in between now and then, and it promises that "fun in-game activities" are on the horizon to celebrate the game and its legacy.
"We hope that the in-game experiences we've developed over the years have provided you with the highest level of entertainment that we strive to fulfill here at Zynga," it concluded. "We look forward to you joining us in Farmville 2: Tropic Escape, Farmville 2: Country Escape and the upcoming worldwide launch of FarmVille 3 on mobile."
