Tech that died in 2020

Even in a year like 2020, one thing didn’t change in the tech world: Certain devices, technologies, and services shut down. The causes vary, as does the level of regret. Some things we’ll miss; some things we never cared about; and others, we’re glad to show the door. This year, we’re dividing the departed by how much we think most people will actually care. Check out our list below and wave goodbye or good riddance to:

Tech we’ll actually miss

FarmVille

Zynga

Few Flash games hitting end of life deserve their own entry, but few games have ever seized the public imagination like Zynga’s FarmVille. The company announced that as of December 31, 2020, FarmVille would drift off into the sunset with the rest of the Flash-based world.

FarmVille existed on Facebook, and for a few years the social network felt more like a vehicle for the game than anything else. Between June and October, 2009, 62 million people signed up to play the game, as reported by The New York Times. At the time that was close to one-fifth of Facebook’s global user base. FarmVille was huge, not to mention addicting. It had everything: critics, a Lady Gaga tie-in, business scandals, and one particularly horrific story.

With FarmVille you built a farm by growing virtual crops and livestock. You had freedom to design your farm as you wanted. The more work you put in, the bigger and better your farm grew. You could speed up progress with in-game purchases. 

The addictive part was that FarmVille happened in real time, regardless of whether you were tending to your homestead. That led to numerous notifications during the course of the day that your crops were ready to harvest. A FarmViller delayed at their peril, as they risked ruining all their hard work.

It was a gaming obsession that we really haven’t seen since. For anyone who misses the digital home on the range, there’s always FarmVille 3.