Electronic Arts to Shutter Playfish Social Titles - The UpStream

Electronic Arts to Shutter Playfish Social Titles

posted Saturday Apr 20, 2013 by Scott Ertz

Electronic Arts to Shutter Playfish Social Titles

Since its introduction, SimCity Social has been a pretty big hit. Several of us here have been playing since the very beginning, and have dedicated more time than I think any of us would like to admit. This, and other Playfish titles, have all been popular enough that even Zynga was frightened enough to rip them off wholesale.

Former CEO John Riccitiello believed in PC titles enough to say,

Just five years ago people said that the PC game business was in a radical state of decline because NPD said it was down 10 percent, 20 percent, 30 percent, year-in year-out... The fastest growing platform for video games today is the PC, but it's growing through subscriptions, through micro transactions and through downloads.

Apparently this doesn't involve Playfish's social offerings, or the company is trying to reverse his decisions. As a result, the company has announced it will shutter all of the Playfish social offerings, including SimCity Social, The Sims Social, NHL Superstars and Madden NFL Superstars. Each game got an identical message, with only the game titles and in-game currency being changed.

The community response has been exactly what any thinking person would expect: outrage. Most people commenting on the Playfish forums are demanding their money back for the diamonds, or whatever currency their game used, they purchased. Many others are saying that they will never play another EA title, or at least another EA online title, if this is going to be how they treat their players. There has also been a lot of references to the recent award that The Consumerist recently gave to EA, Worst Company In America, which they won in part because of the poor support for their products.

There is good news: EA has promised a special offer to affected players to get them into EA's other studio - PopCap. Based on the comments, however, it probably won't matter.

Are you affected by this shut down? Will you transition to PopCap or has this turned you off to EA social titles? Let us know in the comments below.

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