If you want to harvest those apples, you better get on it soon: Zynga is shutting down its original FarmVille web game on Facebook at the end of the year, the company announced. It’s not entirely unexpected news; Facebook said in July it would no longer support Flash games as of December 31st, the same date Adobe is killing the Flash player altogether.
But it does feel like the end of a gaming era. As silly (and sometimes annoying) as FarmVille could be — especially when it seemed like all of your Facebook friends were tending their crops — it was a huge win for Zynga. The game launched in 2009 and had more than 10 million daily active users in less than two months. At its peak popularity, some 30 million people played FarmVille daily, driving Zynga to record revenues. A mobile version and a sequel followed, but subsequent games never quite captured the magic of the original.
FarmVille players will be able to continue making in-app purchases until November 17th, after which its payment system will shut down. You can still play the game until December 31st, after which it will shut down permanently. And Zynga says a mobile version of FarmVille 3 will be available worldwide soon.
