Playfish's Tom Sarris defends decision to shut down Pirates Ahoy!, Gangster City and Poker Rivals

At the beginning of April, we brought you the sad news that Playfish has decided to close Pirates Ahoy!, Gangster City and Poker Rivals, there of their under-performing Facebook games, this June. Now, Playfish's Tom Sarris has spoken out about the decision with News10.

In an interview, Sarris defended the company's difficult decision to close (or "sunset") the three games by stating that: "We [Playfish] constantly evaluate all of our games during the duration of their life and three games in particular, their player numbers have dropped in such a way that it no longer made sense for us to support them. And, as such, we reallocate resourced to games that are currently, you know, doing very well and also for games that we are developing for future release."


All isn't lost for fans of those three games, however. If you do happen to have virtual currency saved up in those games, remember that Playfish has launched an opportunity to transfer that money into another of the company's games, and will eventually allow you to do so into EA's Monopoly Millionaires with a "player's pack," although specifics about what is included in that pack weren't made clear.

Sarris went on to state that all of Playfish's other games are "thriving," and that there are many other games that the company is looking to release over the next few months to fill in any gap left behind with the closure of these three games. We'll make sure to let you know what those new games turn out to be, but for now, you can check out the full interview with Sarris at the top of this post.