GoPets Closure
Written by: Mobius Games team
Publication: Mobius Games news
Date published: Circa October 2009
Early October 2009, an announcement was made regarding the closure of GoPets. The official announcement was made in the GoPets forums. Below is the mirror of the announcement.
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GoPets will be shutdown November 7th, 2009
Dear all GoPets Players,
It is with profound regret and sadness that I compelled to report that we will have to shut the GoPets and GoDance service down.
It has been a privilege to work closely together with you the fan base over the past 5 years - over a million pets, 150,000 custom items, robust trades and countless adventures – all wonderful.
At the core of the issue is that despite heroic work by staff and volunteers the fundamental structure of GoPets including being a client vs. a web application and numerous others challenges, we could not grow GoPets large enough to be self-sustaining.
The staff members have moved on to good jobs, and GoPets itself will be carefully archived – for now there are no plans – but there can be hope.
The target for end of service is November 7th, 2009. We suspended payments earlier this week and we will be using our remaining savings to best refund remaining subscription time to the best of our ability. Other details of the shutdown process will follow.
I would like to thank the special volunteer players who have made extra ordinary contributions of creativity and sweat over the past year – all amazing.
Also, I must thank Mike, Ken, Nancy, Houston and Tony for keeping GoPets running for the past year as well as creating GoDance with such a small staff and huge time pressure. It was always a tough situation but I think you can be proud of what you created.
Finally, I must thank my wife Kaiwen – Lotus. GoPets could never have been created without her adventuresome spirit to move to Korea in 2003, and since then she has grown into our community leader, our localization leader and most recently a prolific designer. Beyond all that she has been my partner through all of these ups and downs and has endured and helped solve all of chaos to our family and personal lives.
Deep sadness,
-Erik
===
As most of you GoPets fanatics know, GoPets was acquired by Zynga Games. Zynga Games is a company that ushered in an era of social gaming titles such as Farmville, and Fishville in Facebook. There has been no official news regarding Zynga acquisition of GoPets so far. Below is one of many articles on the Internet that speaks to the acquisition.
http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2009/11/03/with-gopets-purchase-where-will-zynga-head-next/
We here at mobiusgames have supported Gopets in the South East Asian region through the years. We are very excited about this latest development, and are eagerly waiting where Zynga takes GoPets from here.
Stay Tuned for more updates regarding GoPets and Zynga Games.
mobiusgames Team
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GoPets will be shutdown November 7th, 2009
Dear all GoPets Players,
It is with profound regret and sadness that I compelled to report that we will have to shut the GoPets and GoDance service down.
It has been a privilege to work closely together with you the fan base over the past 5 years - over a million pets, 150,000 custom items, robust trades and countless adventures – all wonderful.
At the core of the issue is that despite heroic work by staff and volunteers the fundamental structure of GoPets including being a client vs. a web application and numerous others challenges, we could not grow GoPets large enough to be self-sustaining.
The staff members have moved on to good jobs, and GoPets itself will be carefully archived – for now there are no plans – but there can be hope.
The target for end of service is November 7th, 2009. We suspended payments earlier this week and we will be using our remaining savings to best refund remaining subscription time to the best of our ability. Other details of the shutdown process will follow.
I would like to thank the special volunteer players who have made extra ordinary contributions of creativity and sweat over the past year – all amazing.
Also, I must thank Mike, Ken, Nancy, Houston and Tony for keeping GoPets running for the past year as well as creating GoDance with such a small staff and huge time pressure. It was always a tough situation but I think you can be proud of what you created.
Finally, I must thank my wife Kaiwen – Lotus. GoPets could never have been created without her adventuresome spirit to move to Korea in 2003, and since then she has grown into our community leader, our localization leader and most recently a prolific designer. Beyond all that she has been my partner through all of these ups and downs and has endured and helped solve all of chaos to our family and personal lives.
Deep sadness,
-Erik
===
As most of you GoPets fanatics know, GoPets was acquired by Zynga Games. Zynga Games is a company that ushered in an era of social gaming titles such as Farmville, and Fishville in Facebook. There has been no official news regarding Zynga acquisition of GoPets so far. Below is one of many articles on the Internet that speaks to the acquisition.
http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2009/11/03/with-gopets-purchase-where-will-zynga-head-next/
We here at mobiusgames have supported Gopets in the South East Asian region through the years. We are very excited about this latest development, and are eagerly waiting where Zynga takes GoPets from here.
Stay Tuned for more updates regarding GoPets and Zynga Games.
mobiusgames Team