PopCap kills Baking Life
ZipZapPlay Facebook game to shut despite audience of 760,000
PopCap will shutdown Facebook game Baking Life on January 31, despite the game's audience of 100,000 daily active users, and 760,000 monthly active users.
Not big numbers for a Facebook title, but a percentage of those users will have spent real world money on the title before the closure was announced. That money will not be transferable to other PopCap titles.
"Unfortunately, we had to make a very difficult decision to shut down the game," PopCap's Garth Chouteau confirmed to InsideSocialGames
"The Baking Life player numbers have dropped in such a way that Baking Life is no longer performing well enough to justify continued support. As such, we are reallocating resources to games that we are developing for future release."
Users have reacted angrily to the news, taking to the official forum to complain.
"Seriously , I'm really hacked off," said forum poster Colin Carruthers.
"This game is and has become a family favourite , I have spent an obscene amount of money on this game , using Facebook credits etc, only to be told it is no longer going to be available after the 31st January."
Others argue that they should have been told earlier about the closure to prevent them purchasing virtual currency that they couldn't use, and suggest emailing the PopCap CEO to complain.
As compensation PopCap has offered Baking Life gamers a "one-time" free gift" if they check out its other titles, Bejeweled Blitz and Zuma Blitz.
By comparison, Bejeweled Blitz currently has 3,200,000 daily active users and 9,400,000 monthly active users.
PopCap acquired ZipZapPlay in April 2011, and at the time made clear it was still deciding what to do with Baking Life. At time the cake centred title was the developer's most successful title.