The Simpsons has a long and storied history in the video game medium, with titles such as Virtual Springfield and The Simpsons: Hit & Run garnering cult success, but there hasn't been a AAA game about the show since 2007. EA has held the video game rights to The Simpsons for some time now, but the last major title the publisher released was The Simpsons Game, which tied into the 2007 Simpsons movie. Since then, EA has released The Simpsons: Tapped Out, a massively lucrative mobile game that may be responsible for no other AAA Simpsons titles coming to consoles.
The Simpsons video games have had a shaky history. Throughout the '90s, games such as Bart's Nightmare received mixed to negative reviews, with critics citing issues with poor controls and unfair difficulty. Few games released during this time accrued much of a following, many of them ultimately being forgotten. By the 2000s, with new publishers and better hardware, a greater amount of Simpsons video games were released. In 2001, EA released The Simpsons: Road Rage for GameCube, Xbox, and PlayStation 2, a driving game much like Sega's Crazy Taxi in which The Simpsons family drove around town to pick up and drop off many of the characters from the animated series.
The next year, however, EA released The Simpsons Skateboarding, a game considered one of the worst games of all time for its poor controls and bad graphics. The Simpsons Hit & Run was released only one year later by Radical Entertainment, a game considered by many to be the best Simpsons video game, with many fans wishing to see a remake of The Simpsons: Hit & Run on current-gen consoles. However, later Simpsons video games from EA failed to live up to Hit & Run's potential, with the publisher releasing only one more console title after its release, that being The Simpsons Game in 2007.
Why EA Hasn't Published Any New Simpsons Video Games
Despite selling well, The Simpsons Game received mixed reviews, with many criticizing its short length, shallow gameplay of repetitive platforming puzzles and beat-'em-up sections, as well as a questionable camera control system which didn't appear to work as intended. EA would go on to cancel a proposed sequel to The Simpsons Game in 2011, instead shifting focus to mobile Simpsons games, and eventually creating The Simpsons: Tapped Out in 2012. Tapped Out is a freemium Simpsons city-builder mobile game that allows players to create and maintain their own version of Springfield, with characters and locations from the animated series. The game has generated millions of dollars worth of revenue, keeping players invested with updates and opportunities to acquire new items via in-app purchases. Considering the success of Tapped Out and the relatively mixed reviews previous Simpsons games received, EA may believe that it doesn't need to make a new AAA video game based on the license.
Despite this, many fans still want a new game based on The Simpsons. As memes based on the series continue to be popular online and fans continue to demand a remaster of The Simpsons: Hit & Run, a new game based on The Simpsons is on the minds of many fans. As things currently stand, however, it seems as if EA has no intention of pursuing a new Simpsons video game. Disney may one day allow another publisher access to The Simpsons license, as it did recently with Star Wars, but until that happens, it looks as if players will have to wait a long time to enter a new virtual Springfield.