Forum ‹ The Lounge ‹ Yahoo! Games shutting down

[fjibril]

I just received the following eMail:

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Dear Partner,

As part of our efforts to simplify the core business at Yahoo, we’ve had to take a hard look at our existing products and services. We have decided to discontinue the Yahoo Games site and publishing channel (aka The Yahoo Games Channel Program).

On Monday, March 14, 2016 we will:

Stop accepting in-game purchases.

Notify users that the Yahoo Games site will be shut down on Friday, May 13, 2016, but that they can still enjoy playing all their games until then.

Starting today, Yahoo will allow you to migrate users from Yahoo Games to the channel of your choice, e.g. your own website, Facebook, or any other similar gaming platform. We strongly encourage you to take this opportunity, since it will allow you to keep your valuable users after the shutdown. The exact method of migrating a user is of course highly dependent on which other channels your game is published on, and how you have integrated your game, but we will be available to you during this time to answer questions.

IT IS IMPORTANT THAT ON MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2016, you include in-product messaging in your Games notifying users that your game will no longer be offered on Yahoo Games on Friday, May 13, 2016 and relevant information relating to any options you will be providing users in connection with the discontinuation of your game on Yahoo, including options relating to in-game purchases. The message can include the option to move to users to another channel, to receive refunds or like-kind credits for use in other games, or such other information as you see fit. Feel free to also include a link or process to migrate users to another platform.
If you believe it would be in your best interest to offer large scale refunds to your players then please notify us in writing by Monday, March 14, 2016.

For any questions, please email us at gamesnet@yahoo-inc.com.

Thank you from Yahoo!

I replied with following question, and will update here once I have an answer. Maybe some forum moderator can also elaborate, if there are any left?

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Hello,

does this include the Yahoo! Games Network services (the old player.io) such as GameFS and PayVault, or is it just for the Yahoo Games site. Will I be able to use the YGN Backend for games on Facebook, or will it also shut down?

This is not obvious from your eMail.

Thanks for reply.

[robscherer123]

Thanks for the feedback. This is very scary news. Please post as soon as you can if you get a response.

[TD]

If anything there talking about the Yahoo Gam esection were u publish yahoo games at and also if this happens we will get old player.io back like the www.player.io place if anyone remembers that, To many High player Games are hosted here No way theyd shut it down for gud if anything they will host it somwere else

[TD]

I hope someone new takes over player.io so we can get some real f***ing support / Upgrades.

[Kerozzz]

Hello
Thanks for informing us about scary news
I was asking, so player.io will back?
OR
What would happen to our games which are powered by PlayerIO Servers?
I hope I gets any clear answer about this!
Thanks for reading

[Miguel42]

Hey!,

I hope its a fake Message because i didn´t see any Post about it started by the Team,
If its real i hope any team member will take place as the manager etc...
waiting on new informations!

Greetz,
ReifeizZ aka Samir...

[Henrik]

Yahoo Games Channel being discontinued

[jsheppard]

Beep Boop Beep

[Henrik]

THE GAMES PLATFORM COMPANY BUYS YAHOO GAMES BACKEND SERVICES

[vertical]

I just read it. First, I was like "we are doomed" when I saw the warning on the up page of YGBS. But then I read your updates.

I'm very glad of what happen because the future in Yahoo was very uncertain. I'm glad we go to the old pricing model too. I hope we'll keep everything else as good as it is now.

One single question : It's not very clear on the Yahoo FAQ (or I miss the information) :

You do not have to make any changes to your games, they will continue working exactly the same after the transition.

It means that the transfer will be invisible for our users, right ? We have nothing to do on our side if I understand ?
I asked just in case we need to be prepared to tell to our user that "this day" there should be disconnection/database duplicated for a day or two ? Or technically it should be totally transparent ?

As you know, our game will be 3 week old on May 9th, so it still a critical zone for us to assure a good customer service.

Thanks Henrik to have found a continuation for us ! All of this sounds very great !

[Henrik]

Yes, we're planning for the transfer to be as smooth as possible. If all goes as planned there will be a few minutes of downtime, and that's it. We'll be working with GPC to make sure we're as close to that goal as possible.

But noone will need to upgrade the SDK or multiplayer server code or anything like that, all games should just keep working as-is.

[vertical]

Wonderful thanks !

[robscherer123]

Very very exciting! Super glad to hear their is a future for the service! I i plan on sticking with it for a long time. Hope to see more additions to it as well. Good luck guys!

[Pawel Wozniak]

Really great news!

[yailenko]

Awesome! :)

[eRistocracy.org]

We are SAVED!!!

We keep our fingers crossed for the smooth transition and future development of PlayerIO!!! We can't wait to see your plans of improvements guys!