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Microsoft has announced its plans to close its mobile racing game Forza Street less than two years from its US debut on mobile. Seeing that the game was a lazy rebrand of an already failed PC and tablet racing game previously known as Miami Street, this closure isn't surprising. The rebrand happened when plans were announced for the racer to make its way from the Microsoft Store to Android and iOS. Clearly, Microsoft knew something we didn't, and so Forza's name was used to push the mobile version out the door as if it was something new. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that Forza fans familiar with the racing series weren't keen on a tap-based casual racing game where you can't steer your car, and so Microsoft has announced that Forza Street isn't long for this world. It's set to close sometime this Spring.
Project Cars GO limps across the finish line this month as servers are scheduled for shutdown
Perhaps one-tap racers aren't a great idea?
Surprise surprise, Gamevil's ploy to create a CSR Racing clone with the Project CARS brand hasn't worked out. Seven months after the initial release, Gamevil and Slightly Mad Studios have announced that their one-touch racer Project CARS GO isn't long for this world. As of yesterday, the Play Store listing can no longer be downloaded, though those that still have the game installed will be able to play until November 30th, when the servers will be shut down. All in-app purchases are already disabled, and those still holding in-game currency have an opportunity to spend it before the 30th, and if you're still holding this currency when the doors shutter, you will have an opportunity to receive a return.
Before there was Google Photos, there was Shoebox. The app offered strikingly similar features, including automatic online backup of your photos and cross-platform access and sharing. Now, the service is shutting down. Users are no longer able to upload photos or videos, and media not exported by May 22 will be lost.
Google Fit's home on the web will be shutting down next month. On March 19, the site will be no more, according to a big, bright banner on the homepage.
Today's the end of the line for the Opera VPN app and its viking mascot Olaf. Former Opera VPN users can snag a couple of deals on SurfEasy VPN products, though: Opera Gold users get a free year of SurfEasy Ultra, which normally costs $11.99 a month, and anyone using Opera VPN can get SurfEasy Total for 99 cents a month instead of its usual $4.99. Like Opera VPN, SurfEasy Total and Ultra both block ad tracking and neither puts a cap on data.
Capcom announced in a blog post yesterday that it's winding down support for its free-to-play puzzle game, Puzzle Fighter. In-app purchases will be available until April 23, and the game will be removed from app stores on July 1. The game's servers will shut down on July 31, making it unplayable.
The world of startups is an incredibly harsh one, with most companies ending up either getting bought or closing down — assuming they even manage to gain any traction in the first place. AppGratis is unfortunately an example of a startup that's recently fallen into the latter category, having just announced its shutdown a few days ago.
App.net, caused quite a splash when it launched in 2012, with its ad-free, subscription-genereated revenue model causing waves in the industry, at a time when many were worried about Twitter's increasing reliance on advertising to make money. However, the founders announced today that the service will be shutting down on 14 March, with user signups suspended immediately.
Love the idea of cloud storage providers but don't want to trust your data with the big guys? One more of your options is about to go away. Copy, the cloud storage service from Barracuda, is shutting down on May 1st, 2016.
Parse is a service provider that has offered backend tools to mobile app developers who needed help storing data online and pushing information through the web, such as user login information and notifications. Now it's moving on. In a blog post, Parse declared a need to move resources elsewhere and its plan to wind down the service by January 28th, 2017.
Dropbox is a cloud storage provider, but over the past couple of years, the company has tried to expand into something more. For some folks, it's also an email client. For others, it was a place not just to store photos, but to interact with them in a cool way.
Square's app for ordering food and drinks ahead of time won't be helping people consume meals much longer. Square has removed the app from the Google Play, and it plans to shut down the service in just a matter of days.
Twipic has been hosting images on Twitter for years now. Even though competitors have cropped up and Twitter has introduced its own native picture storage option, the service remains a well-known means of hosting images for use on the social network. Its official Android app, which popped up several years after the service gained wide adoption, still managed to accumulate hundreds of thousands of downloads.
Winamp has been around since 1997, and though it has amassed a large and faithful following in the years since, the good times are coming to an end. The software will cease to be available come December 20th. Anyone who visits the download page is now greeted by a message warning that they better grab the goods while they're still available, because they won't be a month from now.