Last November, popular social game developer Playdom followed up its $43 million funding round with news that it had acquired two smaller game developers, Green Patch and Trippert Labs. Green Patch is best known for its game Lil’ Green Patch, a gardening simulator that attracted users by promising to contribute to the Nature Conservancy. And now, less than six months after acquiring the game, Playdom is killing off Lil Green Patch and a handful of other games that fall under the Green Patch brand, like Lil Eco Racer and Lil Blue Cove. The lone survivor will be Farmville competitor Lil Farm Life, which has around 3.4 million monthly active users.
Here’s the message that was posted to Playdom’s community forums:
After much discussion between the developers and the executive suite, we have sadly decided to close all Green Patch games except Lil Farm Life (which will remain and will be receiving much more attention). The main reason to discontinue these games, including Lil Green Patch, is that we no longer have the resources to support Lil Green Patch in the way that makes sense for us and for our players.
Our different studios are working on both existing and new games, and at this point, we are not able to support the Green Patch games to the degree that we expect of ourselves.
Logistically, you’ll see a pop-up added into the game that you need to check that you’ve read and understood. This includes the fact that any real currency spent in the game will not be refundable per our Terms of Service agreement. The final date that these games will be available on Facebook is June 10th, 2010.
If you do have any specific needs, please go to http://support.playdom.com/home, and the support team can communicate with you on a one-on-one basis.
As of June 10th, 2010, we will also be closing this forum as well as our support channels. Thank you for your support and loyalty through this entire process.
In its late-2008 heyday, Lil Green Patch was the top ranked game on Facebook. It’s since waned in popularity — as of today the game has 371,856 monthly active users. But those who are still playing the game are understandably upset. One user tell us that Playdom “strung out the players of this game along for months and only recently started saying things like ‘we can’t integrate the back end'”.