The Simpsons Game

NOISELAND ARCADE

Homer and Bart are anguished to see a condemned sign on a chain-link fence. Behind the fence is a screenshot of Springfield from the Tapped Out game.

Electronic Arts has announced the mobile game The Simpsons: Tapped Out will be shut down on January 24, 2025. In-app purchases have already been disabled and the game will be delisted from app stores on October 31, 2024.

In a Facebook post, EA thanked fans for their “remarkable journey” together:

The decision to end our twelve-year journey is an emotional one. Together with our partners at The Simpsons™ and The Walt Disney company, we have delighted in bringing this game to you, the fans, and seeing how you’ve each built your own beloved versions of Springfield. It has been a remarkable journey, and we are grateful that we’ve been able to deliver 308 updates, 831 characters and including today’s final farewell 1,463 questlines.

Launched in 2012, Tapped Out is a “freemium” game that allows players to build their own version of Springfield, with storylines written by actual Simpsons writers. By playing through questlines and acquiring currency, players could obtain buildings and characters to populate their town, and/or purchase them with actual money. That last part is key: just two years after its launch, Tapped Out had generated over $130 million. While its popularity had decreased over the years, it was still making money: according to Statista, the game generated $4.38 million in the first five months of 2024. Critics have opined that such “freemium” games are more akin to video gambling than traditional video games.

While this has not been confirmed, the imminent shutdown of Tapped Out next year could be an indication that EA’s exclusive Simpsons license is expiring after 20 years. The publisher had signed a “long-term, exclusive deal” for the rights back in 2005. It released The Simpsons Game for multiple platforms in 2007, and… that’s been it for The Simpsons on consoles, outside of collaborations with Minecraft and LEGO. A writer for Screen Rant theorized that “considering the success of Tapped Out and the relatively mixed reviews previous Simpsons games received, EA may believe that it doesn’t need to make a new AAA video game based on the license.”

Earlier this year, it was announced that Disney and Epic Games will collaborate on an “all-new games and entertainment universe” featuring “content, characters and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar and more.” Whether The Simpsons will be a part of that universe remains to be seen.

NOISELAND ARCADE

You can rest easy, everybody. It looks like negotiations are over, contracts have been signed, and The Simpsons will be returning from its hiatus.

I speak, of course, about the franchise’s extended hiatus from video game consoles. Hard as it may be to believe, it’s been over seven years since the release of a Simpsons game on a dedicated gaming system. With EA’s attention focused on The Simpsons: Tapped Out, the hugely successful freemium game for iOS and Android devices, the prospects of a followup to 2007’s The Simpsons Game looked fairly dim. But now it looks like Homer and the gang just might be returning to consoles… just not in the way anyone expected.

Yesterday, The LEGO Group and Warner Bros. announced LEGO Dimensions, a new game & toy series in the lucrative “you have to keep buying plastic junk” category pioneered by Skylanders. Once you’ve plunked down a hundred bucks for the starter pack, you can buy additional characters and content from various franchises. Unlike its rival Disney Infinity, LEGO Dimensions won’t be limited to franchises owned by the same megacorporation – they’ve already licensed Back to the Future from Universal, for example.

On Twitter, @UKVGDeals highlighted what could be a clue to a certain other franchise in the extended trailer:

Lego Dimensions trailer

That’s right: a donut with pink frosting and sprinkles, 100% clear-cut confirmation that The Simpsons will be a part of the game in the future. (Aside: When and how did “donut with pink frosting” become the defining icon of The Simpsons, anyway?)

Still not convinced? Well, as fellow Twitter user Ryan W. Mead pointed out, a New York Times article mentions “Characters owned by 20th Century Fox are also expected to join Dimensions as it rolls out.” Clearly they must be referring to the Simpsons because, ha ha, does Fox even have any other franchises anymore?

So, there you have it, folks: The Simpsons is almost definitely coming back to consoles in the form of an add-on pack to LEGO Skylanders: The Game, by next year, probably. What’s less clear is if the show will still be on by then.

Wait, I just remembered the Minecraft pack. Eh, whatever.

GROEN DRAIN, SPRINGFIELD SHOPPER

matt groening dollSimpson creator Matt Groening went to Egypt to check out the pyramid and he foolishly ignored all the hieroglyphic warnings and trespassed into the forbidden zone when all of a sudden The Mummy appeared and cast a big curse on him. As karmic retribution for all his brazen merchandising and capitalist crimes, Mr. Groening was turned into a piece of merchandise himself, how ironic. Now he is no longer human, he is just a doll and can’t do human things anymore, rip.

OK but seriously now, for just fifty American dollars you can buy a toy version of the guy whose signature appears on all your other Simpsons toys. Here’s what the solicitation says:

Created by legendary “Life is Hell” cartoonist Matt Groening, THE SIMPSONS is celebrating its 500th episode in February 2012, and Kidrobot is honoring the father of primetime animation in the only way we know how – making him into a 6-inch vinyl toy! Complete with goatee and glasses, director’s jacket, and pad and pencil accessories, it is the first EVER Simpsons Matt Groening toy.

Essentially, if you cut out the middlemen, you can pay a guy money and he will give you a doll version of himself. This is so weird and messed up that I needed to lie down to fully contemplate the many levels of Meta this object encapsulates.

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ROCK BOTTOM

drudge sirenBreaking news out of California… it looks like the sequel to The Simpsons Game has finally been officially cancelled… can’t say this was all that surprising… but apparently they’d been working really hard on it and now all that hard work will never be seen… Developing…

[MTV Multiplayer]

NOISELAND ARCADE

Could the late, great Phil Hartman be revived to reprise his characters in an upcoming Simpsons video game? It’s possible, say the intrepid reporters over at Joystiq.com:

EA even said that it could go back to old shows to pull dialogue; while the company didn’t confirm any specific plans to do so, this method could bring Phil Hartman’s old stable of characters into the game.

On a related note, Hartman’s introductory dialogue in Virtual Springfield is some of my favorite Troy McClure material: “Welcome to Springfield, I’m Troy McClure. You might remember me from such computer travel guides as [randomized joke] and [randomized joke]. You know, the great Calvin Coolidge once called this town ‘a pea-size town with lima bean size dreams.’ So warm up your clicking fingers, and let’s explore a town the poets call Springfield, U.S.A.! *coughs, then walks offscreen*” (Paraphrased from memory. Thanks for nothing, internet). [Joystiq]