On Tuesday, the social video game market suffered a blow as Zynga, renowned social video game publisher, shutdown 11 of its games. The latest titles to be shut down or closed to accepting new players include “Petville” and “Mafia Wars 2”.
In October, Zynga expressed interest in shutting down over a dozen of its underperforming titles as the company began to experience financial concerns.
Once a booming market thanks to Facebook, the social gaming market began to decline which led to Zynga having to radically revise their full-year outlook and lay off hundreds of employees in late 2012.
“Petville”, which lets players adopt and raise virtual pets, has over 7.5 million “Likes” on Facebook. However, despite that popularity, the game only has 60,000 daily active users.
Since the announcement of the shutdown, users have left comments on the “Petville” Facebook page expressing anger and sadness over the title’s closure.
Zynga has apologized to players and urges them to play other popular Zynga games like “Castleville”, “Farmville 2”, and “Mafia Wars”. Zynga posted on the “Petville” Facebook page the following statement:
“Thank you for supporting PetVille and for being a loyal player! We’re sorry to inform you that PetVille will be shutting down on Dec 30, 2012. In place of PetVille, we encourage you to play other Zynga games like Castleville, Chefville, Farmville 2, Mafia Wars and Yoville.”
The full list of titles Zynga has or will shut down includes “ForestVille”, “FishVille”, and “Vampire Wars”. A complete list can be found below.
PetVille
Mafia Wars 2
FishVille
Vampire Wars
Treasure Isle
Indiana Jones Adventure World – Shuts down January 14th
Mafia Wars Shakedown
Forestville
Montopia
Mojitomo
Word Scramble Challenge
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