Facebook says goodbye to FarmVille

Finnish developer Zynga is closing down one of its most popular web games, FarmVille, after 11 years on Facebook.

Facebook announced back in July this year that it will be making some changes to its web games and the Gameroom — and, in particular, ending support for Adobe’s Flash Player as of 31 December 2020.

Zynga detailed on its support page that this change directly affects FarmVille. As a result, the company will shut the game down at the end of the year.

Since its launch in 2009, Facebook saw 10 million active users playing FarmVille. At the height of its popularity, the game saw as many as 30 million users playing FarmVille daily.

FarmVille drove Zynga’s revenues to record earnings and resulted in three sequel games. Meanwhile, the original still saw record installs over the past 10 years.

While Zynga has struggled when migrating to mobile, the original title is still holding its ground against popular and other simulation titles like Hay Day, Minecraft, and Stardew Valley.

FarmVille players can still continue making in-app purchases until its payment system closes down on 17 November 2020 however, farming will come to an end on December 31, 2020.

The FarmVille experience will still continue on mobile with FarmVille 3 coming to Android devices globally in future.

Facebook’s changes to other gaming titles

Some of the other changes arriving to Facebook’s Web Games and Gameroom includes changes to HTML5 and Native games.

Facebook will remove the access point to HTML5 games after 30 June 2021 and redirect players to the games on Facebook.com for continued play.

Native games will also be available to play until once the Gamesroom closes down. After this date, Facebook will redirect players to similar games or to the game’s Facebook page.

Facebook has urged affected developers to inform the platform of their redirection plans by February next year.

Feature image: Zynga