FarmVille, a game synonymous with Facebook and hardcore casual gaming, will be put out to pasture along with the end of this year.
Developer Zynga explains as much in a recent post on its support site. The reason for the shuttering? Why Flash of course.
“Following an incredible 11 years since its initial launch back in 2009, we are officially announcing the closure of the original FarmVille game on Facebook. As previously stated, Adobe will stop distributing and updating Flash Player for all web browsers, and Facebook will stop supporting Flash games on the platform completely after December 31st, 2020. FarmVille will therefore be directly affected as a result of this,” reads the announcement.
This is a rather unfortunate reason for FarmVille to die since the end of Flash has been on the horizon for years. A billion dollar, publicly traded company like Zynga is not wanting for resources so we have to imagine that recreating the game in something like HTML5 wouldn’t be that difficult, especially with the time they’ve had to make the change.
For those who spent money in the game, or intend to do so before 31st December, you will have until 17th November to part ways with your money. Between 17th November and 31st December both in-app payments, and refunds, will be turned off.
“Any remaining credits that you have during this period should be used before December 31st, 2020. We are also working on fun in-game activities to be announced soon that are designed to make your remaining time with FarmVille even more enjoyable,” the announcement continues.
Those hoping for some kind of remake of the game in the aforementioned HTML5 or some other way to officially play the game win 2021 will be disappointed. The end of the news is punctuated by Zynga reminding people to play Farmville 2: Tropic Escape instead, or to wait for the mobile game FarmVille 3.
While the original game will always exist in some unofficial capacity thanks to the work of historians and less well-intentioned people on the internet, this is still a sad day.
