But in the following three years Playfish exploded. These were very good numbers at the time, especially for a small team of 18 people. It was the most exciting career ride I've ever been on."Īt its peak Pet Society had 50 million monthly players, 5 million daily players and made as much as $100,000 a day by selling in-game items-clothing for the pets or decorations for their houses. It went from 200,000 players to a million, which was amazing, and then it hit six million and it was the biggest game on Facebook. I remember in the early days when it made a $1000 a day we got excited. He said that the game's success caught the team by surprise. John Earner was Product Manager at Playfish at the time. In November 2009, EA acquired Playfish for $300 million as part of its aggressive push into the then burgeoning social gaming space. Pet Society was originally developed and operated by small startup Playfish. "I'm not so offended," Inouye said after I told her about the whale designation, "but then again it makes me wonder too, if people are spending that much money on a 'free-to-play' game, how come EA couldn't keep it running?" In fact, a great number of social games are modeled directly after card games and slot machines. Both business models often extract money from players in tiny increments and rely on audio-visual feedback to send people into the Machine Zone. There are a lot of other similarities to be drawn between social games and the gambling industry. In the social games industry Inouye is what's called a "whale," a term borrowed from the casino industry to describe big spenders. When I asked Inouye if she spent any money on Pet Society she laughed, a little embarrassed. They gave us two months, to cope with the loss, I guess." EA has completely underestimated that, and yeah, a lot of people felt like EA was killing their pets. "People were crazy about Pet Society too. "I know that some people must think, wow, you people need to get a life, you're crazy, but one of EA's business partners is Disney, and people are crazy about Disney animated characters," Inouye said. She named her Miss Hiss, after a real stray kitten she found in her backyard and later adopted. Inouye thinks the comparison between the loss of a virtual pet to the loss of a real pet is "really fair." Its eyebrows are raised in a pleading facial expression and its cute little paws hold up a sign inscribed with what is either a request or a call to action: "#savepetsociety." A green, cartoon cat with big, round eyes sheds bulbous tears. Save Pet Society's Twitter profile picture is a caricature of sadness. The atmosphere was always very positive and uplifting, focused on being happy, and you know, In life.life is definitely not like that all the time." "I don't know if this is going to sound hokey," she said about her attachment to the game, "but your pet was always laughing, smiling, having a good time. "Those of us who were still playing the game were like wait a minute, we don't think it's old, and we don't think it's ready for retirement, and what in the world is going on here?" She tweets, blogs and helps organize a boycott of EA products in an attempt to save her virtual pet. When she heard the news, Inouye sought out the Please Save Pet Society Facebook group, now almost 32,000 members strong, and quickly became an active member. She's been playing Pet Society since 2009. Among them was Selena Inouye, a retired "40-something" who lives in Los Angeles with her husband, three cats and two dogs. But wasn't that the point of Pet Society, to get you emotionally invested?"Īccording to AppData, when the game shut down, one million users played the game at least once a month and 500,000 played the game at least once a day. "Shutting down Pet Society is like someone coming into our house and shooting one of our real cats. "My wife has played Pet Society for almost five years," writes one supporter who signed Save Pet Society's petition on. Former players have actually protested online. This was taking away people's (virtual) dogs and cats. This happens all the time in the world of online gaming. Launched in 2008, Electronic Arts shut it down in June, explaining that it was being retired, so EA could "reallocate development resources to other titles." Users raised pets and interacted with other virtual pet owners. Pet Society was a Facebook game played by hundreds of thousands of people.
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