In another indication that the social gaming bubble has gone pop, Electronic Arts says it will shut down three of its once-popular Facebook titles, "The Sims Social," "SimCity Social" and "Pet Society."
Acknowledging that the interest in these games has dropped dramatically, EA, in a blog post on its web site said the games will go offline on June 14, 2013.
As Ars Technica notes, EA's decision to acquire PlayFish, one of Facebook gaming's biggest competitors in a $300 million deal in late 2009, was perceived as a good investment in the future of gaming, especially given the fact that games like "FarmVille" were attracting tens of millions of players daily. However, three years down the line, EA faces an uncertain Facebook future with the impending closure schedule of six Facebook games in total. As the company decides to take down the social versions of its popular sports game brands "Madden NFL SuperStars 11", "12" and "NHL Superstars" on May 14 apart from the three social games, there won't be a single active Playfish game available on Facebook.
"After millions of people initially logged in to play these games, the number of players and amount of activity has fallen off. For people who have seen other recent shutdowns of social games, perhaps this is not surprising." the blog post says.
In a clear indication of the fact that users aren't spending much time playing games on Facebook anymore, EA hints that its decision to shut down the game echoes "other recent shutdowns of social games," perhaps referring to Zynga's decision to take down "PetVille" and several other titles late last year.
EA will continue to have a prescense on the site with games from developer PopCap, including "Bejeweled Blitz," "Solitaire Blitz" and the recently-announced "Plants vs. Zombies Adventures."
