Eurogamer reports that EA has made a statement indicating its intention shut down Facebook titles including The Sims Social, Pet Society, and SimCity Social. Despite EA referring to each of these titles as “older” Facebook titles, SimCity Social has actually not been live for more than a year yet. The publisher cites dwindling player numbers for each of the titles as the main reason to shut them down on June 14th.
All titles have been developed by the EA-owned Playfish studio, and Joystiq reports that EA has declined to comment on rumors suggesting that this might mean the studio is being shut down. The two other titles that are currently available from Playfish, Madden NFL Superstars and NHL Superstars, are also slated to shut down on May 14th. In the statement EA issued to Eurogamer, it did emphasize that the games were being shut down to allow the company to focus its attention on newer projects, though it wasn’t immediately clear if this development would be taking place at Playfish.
Pet Society was launched in August 2008, and The Sims Social and SimCity Social were released in August 2011 and June 2012 respectively.
EA promised players of the three titles being shut down that they will receive a special to help them transition to other EA-owned social games. Nevertheless, players will need to spend their in-game currency and their unredeemed cash cards before the titles go offline, as these can not be used in other titles.