I know we don't talk about mobile games much on this site, but this seems like big enough news to make it worth it to make a thread.

It was just announced on September 26th that EA is shutting down The Simpsons: Tapped Out on January 24, 2025.  In-app purchases have already been disabled.  Tapped Out was originally launched on iOS in 2012, and Android in 2013.  That means that at shutdown, the game will be just shy of 13 years old.  For those that don't know, Tapped Out is a freemium city-builder.  You build your own version of Springfield after Homer blew up the town with an explosion at the nuclear plant.

Personally, I have been playing it since the Easter 2014 event.  So I have been playing it for a few minutes here and there almost everyday for over a decade now, and managed to spend $0.00 doing it.  I'm sad to see it go.  The devs did create a nice little final event to play through that thanked all the players.  A bit of a bittersweet ending for me.  They also made it very easy to get a lot of the premium currency (doughnuts) that you previously had to earn through play, or buy with real money.  I think I will be playing up until the very end.

I'm also interested in what this means for the future of Simpsons games.  You have to go all the way back to 2003's The Simpsons Hit & Run for what I would call the last well-received Simpsons game.  That seems to be the last one anyone has any level of nostalgia for.  The 2007 The Simpsons Game reviewed worse, and I never hear anyone talk about that game.  Although maybe there are some people out there that liked it?  Since then it has just been mobile games in 2007, 2009, and then Tapped Out in 2012.  Nothing new since Tapped Out released.  Surprise, surprise, EA took over the exclusive license in 2005.  They have done essentially nothing except for Tapped Out with this license.  Reminds me of how they did so little with the Star Wars license when they took that over.  I don't know why anyone would ever give them an exclusive license again.

Maybe this means that EA's exclusive license with The Simpsons is expiring?  Maybe someone else can actually do something with The Simpaons now.

Never even heard of it and mobile games with MTX being shut down? Nothing of value lost.

Why are so many people talking about this? Was it popular? I legit have never heard of this game until this was announced.

Speaking of "tapping out," I'm the biggest Simpsons fan on the planet... but man, they needed to call it a day after season ten. Show went off a cliff real quick.

It is The Simpsons, so of course a lot of news sites are going to cover it.  How popular was the game?  Hard to say.  Based on how the Google Play stores buckets their numbers, it looks like more than 10 million downloads, but less than 50 million on that platform.  EA said the game pulled in 130 million in revenue from launch to 2014.  Any other hard numbers are hard to come by.

Dang, not as much interest in the Simpsons as I would have thought I guess.

I'd be interested in if anyone had thoughts on this part.  Any interest out there for new Simpsons games?

I wish Capcom or Bandai Namco would take over licenses like The Sumpsons. I feel Namco could do a cool Simpsons RPG in the style of One Piece Odyssey, and Capcom would make a great action game. Konami did a great job with Western licenses back in the 1990s but their modern game development is still in shambles. EA, Activisoon, and Ubisoft have not done a good job with these types of games. 

Personally, I'm just hoping they don't do any exclusive licensing anymore.  Let multiple developers and publishers work on different games.  I think that is the best chance we get something good to come out.