The end is in sight for The Simpsons: Tapped Out, EA's successful and long-running free-to-play city building game. The publisher announced that it will remove the mobile game from app stores in October, some 12 years after its initial release.
The Simpsons: Tapped Out launched for iOS and Android in 2012, challenging players to rebuild Springfield after Homer Simpson's negligence caused a nuclear meltdown. By 2014, it had generated over $130 million in revenue and has continued to receive updates since then.
“It has been an extraordinary journey,” the statement continues, “and we are grateful to have been able to deliver 308 updates, 831 characters, and including today's final farewell, 1,463 quest lines. As our journey comes to an end, we offer our “Our most sincere thanks to you, the players, who have made all this possible.”
Following today's news, all in-app purchases have been disabled and The Simpsons: Tapped Out will be removed from app stores on October 31 of this year. Players won't have to say goodbye to their virtual Springfields right away, though: EA will keep Tapped Out's servers up for a little while longer, and the game will be permanently offline and inaccessible on January 24 of next year.
“We are aware of an issue with converting in-game currency to donut and are investigating,” the publisher wrote in a follow-up post, which seems like an appropriately surreal note to end on.