Classic Facebook game FarmVille finally meets its end after 11 years, as developer Zynga announces its official shutdown will come at the end of 2020. The game held a simple premise, where players were given a virtual farm to maintain and design. Many Facebook users found this concept enjoyable, making the game surge in popularity and kicking off the mobile game boom that persists today. With Adobe's impending lack of support for Flash, the company (now worth billions) has decided to start sunsetting the browser classic.
Adobe Flash has been a staple of browser-based internet games for as long as many can remember. Its held as a great platform by many developers, having served as a tool for creators to develop games for the public cheaply and easily. One such game was FarmVille, a social media experiment that will go down in history being one of Facebook's most popular games, and it rose to prominence well before the site committed to dipping a toe into the industry with its Facebook Gaming streaming platform. However, as time passed, alternatives such as HTML5 and WebGL proved to be much more secure than Adobe Flash, prompting Adobe to decide to stop official support of Flash at the end of 2020.
With Adobe Flash's end, Zynga officially announces FarmVille will be shut down by December 31, 2020, giving the users a few months to enjoy the game before it closes. Zynga created a short post, explaining the situation and plans for the future and sharing that any final in-app purchases must be made before November 1. Zynga also used this as an opportunity to announce the launch of FarmVille 3, stating, "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." So while the original game might be shutting down, there may be a future for fans who love to farm with friends.
It may be confusing as to why Zynga would shut down the game like this when porting the game to an HTML5 is an option, a good one that many developers have successfully explored already. However, this move is likely to encourage players to move on from the original FarmVille game (not as though that should be Zynga's choice, but that's a reality of live-service gaming) while drumming up public interest in new series titles. With the release of FarmVille 3, Zynga may not want to commit the funds to support all four franchise games, which include FarmVille, FarmVille 2: Tropic Escape, FarmVille 2: Country Escape, and the soon-to-be FarmVille 3.
While it may be the best move from a business standpoint to shut down a Facebook game built around old technology and modernize its formula for modern sensibilities on the more profitable mobile platform, this is a huge loss for both both game preservation efforts and those who just want to play the original game that they fell in love with. However - from Zynga's fiscal quarter-minded perspective, at least - all good things have to come to an end, so FarmVille fans who want to spend a little bit more time with a future relic of internet history have a few months left to do so.
Source: Zynga