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[AlphaTwo00]

http://forum.playfish.com/showthread.php?t=2821001

We want to inform everyone in our community that on June 29, 2012, EA will retire Restaurant City on Facebook and Restaurant City: Gourmet Edition on iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Both games will no longer be available for play. The decision to retire older games is never easy, as the development teams and operational staff pour their hearts into these games almost as much as the customers playing them.

We realize this may be disappointing to fans of Restaurant City, but in order to focus our efforts in developing new and exciting titles, as well as bringing new content and updates to our existing popular games, the time has come to retire Restaurant City and Restaurant City: Gourmet Edition.

As a farewell gift, all players of Restaurant City and Restaurant City: Gourmet Edition will receive 1,000 simoleons in The Sims Social. This free gift is available now and can be claimed by clicking here. The Sims Social, one of the most unpredictable social games that allows players to experiment and play with life, is available for play on Facebook at http://apps.facebook.com/thesimssocial.

Worst part: if you got money sunk on the iOS games, you're boned:

6. What if I have an existing balance of Cooking Cash in Restaurant City on Facebook?

Players are encouraged to spend their remaining balance of Cooking Cash in Restaurant City until the game retires on June 29, 2012. Any remaining Cooking Cash left in the game will be automatically converted into SimCash (the premium cash currency in The Sims Social) starting on June 29, 2012.

The conversion from Cooking Cash to SimCash will be fully matched. For example, if you have 10 Cooking Cash remaining, we will convert 10 Cooking Cash to 10 SimCash.

Please note, in order to complete the transfer, players must first install The Sims Social.


7. What if I have an existing balance of Chef Tokens in Restaurant City: Gourmet Edition on iOS?

Unfortunately, players will not be able to transfer their Chef Token balances to other mobile games or be refunded the amount of Chef Tokens remaining in the game.


8. I don't want to transfer my cash balance to TSS. Can I transfer my cash balance to Pet Society instead?

We are only offering a cash balance transfer to The Sims Social at this time. We will be implementing an automatic conversion of Cooking Cash into SimCash on June 20, 2012; and as such, we can only support the transfer of cash balance to The Sims Social.

So yeah, virtual goods huh?

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

I, for one, await the glorious shitstorm when EA closes the BF3 servers

Spoiler

in 2013.

 

[SmokyDave]

Can't we just have a 'Fuck EA' official thread?

They deserve it.

 

[snap0212]

Disabling access to games is the new server shutdown!

edit: We've moved on. This is not worth bitching about anymore.

 

[alr1ght]

We realize this may be disappointing to fans of Restaurant City, but in order to focus our efforts in developing new and exciting titles, as well as bringing new content and updates to our existing popular games, the time has come to retire Restaurant City and Restaurant City: Gourmet Edition.

AKA don't play Madden 2011 anymore, get Madden 2012!

 

[CosmicQueso]

All 5 people who have skin in that game are hosed.

And yes, let's rage!

Because when costs>revenue EA should still be forced to keep things going no matter if they're losing money because we have rights, dammit! Who's with me! Let's make sure EA and ALL publishers keep servers up forever, no matter how much these things lose because, dammit, in 2017 I'm going to want to play 8 year old games!!!

Oh wait, not really.

Slow news day?

 

[Baha]

We realize this may be disappointing to fans of Restaurant City, but in order to focus our efforts in developing new and exciting titles, as well as bringing new content and updates to our existing popular games, the time has come to retire Restaurant City and Restaurant City: Gourmet Edition.

Yes, we need more people playing our newer games so we shut down this one and are forcibly converting all existing in-game currency to the new game currency so you don't have much of a choice but to try our new game!

 

[AlphaTwo00]

The best part about this is trying to explaining this to my non-gaming friends who are hooked on Facebook what all this means.

 

[Neuromancer]

So my understanding is this is like Farmville except you're running a restaurant. I don't see why they couldn't just shut down their servers (or whatever) and still let you make your own restaurant in a single player capacity.

 

[hoverboarder]

Luckily no one plays either game.

 

[Nibel]

Honestly I never heard about Restaurant City.

But you'll have my axe when they do this to BF3.

 

[BattleMonkey]

Honestly I never heard about Restaurant City.

But you'll have my axe when they do this to BF3.

The BC games are still up, I doubt they are going to take down BF3 any time soon.

 

[SmokyDave]

All 5 people who have skin in that game are hosed.

And yes, let's rage!

Because when costs>revenue EA should still be forced to keep things going no matter if they're losing money because we have rights, dammit! Who's with me! Let's make sure EA and ALL publishers keep servers up forever, no matter how much these things lose because, dammit, in 2017 I'm going to want to play 8 year old games!!!

Oh wait, not really.

Slow news day?

Ah, so you're the new breed of consumer that enables this behaviour. Interesting.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

The BC games are still up, I doubt they are going to take down BF3 any time soon.

Modern Combat servers were just taken down last August.

 

[Sqorgar]

Let's make sure EA and ALL publishers keep servers up forever, no matter how much these things lose because, dammit, in 2017 I'm going to want to play 8 year old games!!!

I still play games that are 8 years old. Hell, I play games that are 30 years old.

Let me guess. You are either a teenager or in your early twenties where the concept of 8 years feels like an eternity, right? It's not. It's an absurdly short period of time.

As for EA losing money on this - well, there's the idea of virtual goods which players have paid money to "own". EA may not be making a huge profit (though I doubt they are losing money on every server and game they close), but that doesn't mean that those items have lost value to the players. If EA wants to have a digital-only future (and they do), then fucking over players is probably not the best way to get their support.

 

[AlphaTwo00]

All 5 people who have skin in that game are hosed.

And yes, let's rage!

Because when costs>revenue EA should still be forced to keep things going no matter if they're losing money because we have rights, dammit! Who's with me! Let's make sure EA and ALL publishers keep servers up forever, no matter how much these things lose because, dammit, in 2017 I'm going to want to play 8 year old games!!!

Oh wait, not really.

Slow news day?

5? Try 310,000.

http://www.appdata.com/apps/facebook/43016202276-restaurant-city

And you know what, sure, it may no longer be cost effective to maintain a server, but as Neuromancer have said: how/why does it nuke out the entire game? The iOS "we've got your money, and they can't be transferred" is downright shitting on consumer's face.

 

[AndyMoogle]

Modern Combat servers were just taken down last August.

I wonder how many played that game up until the servers were taken down. Probably no one.

EDIT: After checking out the Gamefaqs forum for the game, there seems to be a fair amount of players who actually cared about it.

 

[jokkir]

All 5 people who have skin in that game are hosed.

And yes, let's rage!

Because when costs>revenue EA should still be forced to keep things going no matter if they're losing money because we have rights, dammit! Who's with me! Let's make sure EA and ALL publishers keep servers up forever, no matter how much these things lose because, dammit, in 2017 I'm going to want to play 8 year old games!!!

Oh wait, not really.

Slow news day?

What lol. I'm not.. even.. what :lol

 

[ShockingAlberto]

All 5 people who have skin in that game are hosed.

And yes, let's rage!

Because when costs>revenue EA should still be forced to keep things going no matter if they're losing money because we have rights, dammit! Who's with me! Let's make sure EA and ALL publishers keep servers up forever, no matter how much these things lose because, dammit, in 2017 I'm going to want to play 8 year old games!!!

Oh wait, not really.

Slow news day?

The news day isn't what's slow here.

 

[rvy]

All 5 people who have skin in that game are hosed.

And yes, let's rage!

Because when costs>revenue EA should still be forced to keep things going no matter if they're losing money because we have rights, dammit! Who's with me! Let's make sure EA and ALL publishers keep servers up forever, no matter how much these things lose because, dammit, in 2017 I'm going to want to play 8 year old games!!!

Oh wait, not really.

Slow news day?

CosmicQueso
Official EA Apologist #3
(Today, 05:45 PM)

 

[alr1ght]

All 5 people who have skin in that game are hosed.

And yes, let's rage!

Because when costs>revenue EA should still be forced to keep things going no matter if they're losing money because we have rights, dammit! Who's with me! Let's make sure EA and ALL publishers keep servers up forever, no matter how much these things lose because, dammit, in 2017 I'm going to want to play 8 year old games!!!

Oh wait, not really.

Slow news day?

 

[rvy]

http://www.abload.de/img/whiteknightwjfer.png[IMG][/QUOTE]

Oh, shit! [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/KuGsj.gif

 

[The Faceless Master]

The BC games are still up, I doubt they are going to take down BF3 any time soon.

well, they shut down Battlefield 2: Modern Combat servers last year, so i suspect that Bad Company 1 will be next year...

 

[diffusionx]

All 5 people who have skin in that game are hosed.

And yes, let's rage!

Because when costs>revenue EA should still be forced to keep things going no matter if they're losing money because we have rights, dammit! Who's with me! Let's make sure EA and ALL publishers keep servers up forever, no matter how much these things lose because, dammit, in 2017 I'm going to want to play 8 year old games!!!

I really don't believe that costs > revenue on this game, or really any other EA has shut down or is shutting down. That is what is called a "lie."

Especially 360/PS3 games. P2P matchmaker servers are practically free. You will never convince me that keeping one server up to match people for Burnout Revenge or Army of Two costs EA a material amount of money. Especially since, if they did it right, that same server could match people for many different games.

Even if costs did exceed revenue, keeping them up for longer is still probably a good business decision. Keeping your customers happy should be worth something. The Restaurant City people are, in fact, customers. Customers are expensive to get but cheap to retain.

Companies that treat customers well tend to be more successful over the long run. Companies that treat customers shoddily often live to regret that choice.

 

[Interfectum]

All 5 people who have skin in that game are hosed.

And yes, let's rage!

Because when costs>revenue EA should still be forced to keep things going no matter if they're losing money because we have rights, dammit! Who's with me! Let's make sure EA and ALL publishers keep servers up forever, no matter how much these things lose because, dammit, in 2017 I'm going to want to play 8 year old games!!!

Oh wait, not really.

Slow news day?

 

[Goodacre0081]

 

[Kacho]

The news day isn't what's slow here.

Ice cold.

 

[Pyronite]

The game has been out for years. Surely the game won't be open forever, will it?

It's not about enabling EA's behavior. Yeah, I'm sad UO doesn't look like it did back when my Smith was awesome in the early 2000s, and there is no longer any remnant of my account on this earth that I can access, after putting hundreds of hours into him along with many friends. But that's what happens. A judgment call has to be made, and when costs outweigh benefits for a public company, that's a pretty clear place to make the call.

Now, it sucks that they didn't extend a bigger hand trying to trade in credits. But don't expect Farmville to last forever.

 

[Volcynika]

The news day isn't what's slow here.

On point as usual.

 

[Malio]

Surely people can't expect software they've purchased to be available when they want to play it.

 

[Pyronite]

Surely people can't expect software they've purchased to be available when they want to play it.

FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER and ever.... and.... *echoes*

In truth, good luck playing all those games you bought before Windows 95, and prepare for your CDs and DVDs to degrade.

Also: don't invest time and money in a game that requires remote servers unless you are prepared for the very real possibility that those remote servers will go down when the $$$ dries.

Again, it sucks that they didn't do more to reimburse people.

 

[Quadraphonic]

Looks like here it's 1.8 million players each month.
http://www.appdata.com/apps/facebook/43016202276-restaurant-city
And I'm pretty sure that 1,000 simoleons is a pretty useless parting gift.

 

[kodt]

Ah, so you're the new breed of consumer that enables this behaviour. Interesting.

Do you expect every MMO to run forever? Just in case someone wants to play it again someday?

Should NetMech still be running in case someone wants to play Mechwarrior 2 online?

If the game is no longer cost effective, it will have to be shut down at some point.

I still play games that are 8 years old. Hell, I play games that are 30 years old.

Let me guess. You are either a teenager or in your early twenties where the concept of 8 years feels like an eternity, right? It's not. It's an absurdly short period of time.

As for EA losing money on this - well, there's the idea of virtual goods which players have paid money to "own". EA may not be making a huge profit (though I doubt they are losing money on every server and game they close), but that doesn't mean that those items have lost value to the players. If EA wants to have a digital-only future (and they do), then fucking over players is probably not the best way to get their support.

Those are offline games you speak of, which is completely different. This is about online games running on a companies servers. Do you play any online games that are dependent on online servers and are 30 years old?

 

[Quadraphonic]

The game is still profitable. The problem is that they want to force users into the Sims Social to hopefully boost it up a bit more.

 

[ihearthawthats]

Honestly I never heard about Restaurant City.

But you'll have my axe when they do this to BF3.

as someone who's played the game, think of a legit non-bs version of farmville in a restaurant setting. i mean it had some bs, as near all facebook games do, but nowhere near to the degree a zynga game has. it was one of the better facebook games out there, and even though i don't play it anymore, its sad to see it come to this.

The game is still profitable. The problem is that they want to force users into the Sims Social to hopefully boost it up a bit more.

restaurant city was a playfish game, a company which ea acquired after social games blew up. so this looks to me as another "ea acquires ip and kills it off" story.

Those are offline games you speak of, which is completely different. This is about online games running on a companies servers. Do you play any online games that are dependent on online servers and are 30 years old?

no, because online games didn't really exist 30 years ago. eq and uo which were some of the earlier online games and have pretty active servers still today (not counting muds which are also still pretty popular today).

 

[ULTROS!]

Restaurant City is pretty popular here. Too bad it'll be shut down.

 

[CosmicQueso]

Luckily no one plays either game.

You know what, nevermind.

 

[Kuro Madoushi]

All 5 people who have skin in that game are hosed.

And yes, let's rage!

Because when costs>revenue EA should still be forced to keep things going no matter if they're losing money because we have rights, dammit! Who's with me! Let's make sure EA and ALL publishers keep servers up forever, no matter how much these things lose because, dammit, in 2017 I'm going to want to play 8 year old games!!!

Oh wait, not really.

Slow news day?

Junior trolled half the thread. 10/10

 

[CosmicQueso]

The news day isn't what's slow here.

You're right. Power to the people. Or something.

 

[Vamphuntr]

I'm not familiar with the game. Is this an online only game with no offline mode? Is this the same for that Rockband game? I could understand pulling out the game if it's online only and no one is playing anymore.

If there is a solo mode for both then it's quite horrible to pull them out and it's especially awful to lose your in game currency too.

 

[Sqorgar]

Those are offline games you speak of, which is completely different. This is about online games running on a companies servers. Do you play any online games that are dependent on online servers and are 30 years old?

30 years ago, companies didn't run servers. Surprisingly, older games in which you managed your own servers/peer-to-peer connections are still playable multiplayer even now.

But I'm fairly certain that I can still play Diablo on Battle.net. It's almost 20 years old. Ultima Online too. Several lpMUDs I played in middle school (30 years ago) are still running. As it turns out, it's not really THAT expensive to keep a server going indefinitely. This whole server shutdown is a relatively recent thing - Used to be a BIG DEAL when it happened - only EA and NCSoft seem to do it for popularity reasons.

 

[androvsky]

FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER and ever.... and.... *echoes*

In truth, good luck playing all those games you bought before Windows 95, and prepare for your CDs and DVDs to degrade.

Also: don't invest time and money in a game that requires remote servers unless you are prepared for the very real possibility that those remote servers will go down when the $$$ dries.

Again, it sucks that they didn't do more to reimburse people.

Oddly, PC games made before Windows 95 are really easy to run now, thanks to the magic of Dosbox. Early DirectX games are more troublesome.

 

[Bomber Bob]

oh man, EA is on fire

 

[ihearthawthats]

I'm not familiar with the game. Is this an online only game with no offline mode? Is this the same for that Rockband game? I could understand pulling out the game if it's online only and no one is playing anymore.

If there is a solo mode for both then it's quite horrible to pull them out and it's especially awful to lose your in game currency too.

its a facebook game. so its online-only and f2p with microtransactions. the thing that should be upsetting to those that aren't familiar with the game is that (imo) restaurant city is one of the "good" facebook games. when crap games like certain ones made by zynga dominate the scene and give facebook games a bad name, it's not exactly pleasing to hear that ea buys out one of the games that actually was good only to kill it off.

i have no idea how "good" sims social is, but then again, i don't really care to find out anymore. there are good facebook games out there, you just have to look beyond zynga, and now ea, and hope they don't buy them out.

 

[RoninChaos]

All 5 people who have skin in that game are hosed.

And yes, let's rage!

Because when costs>revenue EA should still be forced to keep things going no matter if they're losing money because we have rights, dammit! Who's with me! Let's make sure EA and ALL publishers keep servers up forever, no matter how much these things lose because, dammit, in 2017 I'm going to want to play 8 year old games!!!

Oh wait, not really.

Slow news day?

C'mon, son. If people buy something, they expect to be able to play it. Even a game where they're paying money for shit like 'Chef's coins'. Having the rug pulled out from under them with little warning is a shitty thing to do. ESPECIALLY when those people are your customers. EA isn't hurting for money.

What they are doing is earning that worst company in America award.

Does anybody remember a point between the end of the PS2 and the begining of the new gen that EA was actually kind of awesome?

What the fuck happened?

 

[RoninChaos]

Do you expect every MMO to run forever? Just in case someone wants to play it again someday?

Should NetMech still be running in case someone wants to play Mechwarrior 2 online?

If the game is no longer cost effective, it will have to be shut down at some point.



Those are offline games you speak of, which is completely different. This is about online games running on a companies servers. Do you play any online games that are dependent on online servers and are 30 years old?

Diablo. StarCraft. Warcraft.

 

[AppleMIX]

Honestly I never heard about Restaurant City.

But you'll have my axe when they do this to BF3.

Battlefield 2 servers are up and I think even 1942 has a couple servers too.

Diablo. StarCraft. Warcraft.

Not every developer can be as fortunate as blizzard.

 

[Kinyou]

First they insist on using their own servers and then they're shutting them down when those get to expensive.... -.-

 

[freenudemacusers]

brutal. needs a smartphone version too.

 

[Jac_Solar]

I posted this in another thread, but the more people that are aware of how awful EA's business practices are, and how bad it is for the future of gaming, the better.

"Gaming, and especially EA's trend towards forced online activation is starting to show just how awful it is for gaming -- Mercenaries 2 hasn't been playable for like 2 years or more, according to search results from Google. When you choose new game (Single Player.), the game freezes, appparently because of a bugged TOS agreement you need to accept. There are loads of results on google if you search for it, but it still hasn't been fixed, despite being such a seemingly simple issue.

I've tried emailing several gaming news sites in hopes of reaching EA somehow, cause, again, the search results seem to indicate that many people have tried asking them directly. But it doesn't seem like anyone cared.

Not the greatest game of course, but still, that's just wrong. I tried playing it a couple of weeks ago (Bought it on Xbox 360. I played it for a little bit on PC around the time it came out as well.), but it didn't work -- then, I tried again some weeks after that, and despite getting a patch for it on Xbox 360, it wasn't fixed.

So, it seems like future games won't be playable for long unless they are very popular, or whatever the publisher/company paying for the servers/'online activation issues' and the likes would deem popular."