FarmVille—yes, the original—is finally meeting its demise

Enlarge / They are very excited about doing chores until they run out of energy. (credit: Zynga | Facebook)

You may have thought it was already dead, but today the developer of FarmVille, arguably the first Facebook game to become a true sensation, announced that the game is finally meeting its end.

"Following an incredible 11 years since its initial launch back in 2009, we are officially announcing the closure of the original FarmVille game on Facebook," Zynga said this morning. Players will be able to keep making in-app purchases through November 17; after that point, payments and refunds will be suspended but users will still be able to play through December 31, at which point FarmVille shuts the barn doors for good.

The timing isn't exactly Zynga's choosing: a decade ago, games of that ilk were usually built using Adobe Flash. Flash has for several years notoriously been a complete security disaster, and Adobe said back in 2017 it would finally kill off Flash at the end of 2020. That time is now upon us.

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