This is specifically why I can't stand the idea of these 'games as a service' offerings. They're entirely dependent on some corporate hosted cloud service, and corporations of course are known for long term support and sticking out temporary setbacks- oh wait no, they bail at the first sign of a game not being anything less than a meteoric success, fire the people who made it, shutter the studio then find something else to ruin.

Mind you King is the chief scumbag of the late-stage-capitalism AAA game industry scumbags, so I expect nothing less. Either a game makes all the money conceivable and some inconceivable, in which case it 'meets expectations' or it gets chucked in the bin along with usually at least a few hundred people's livelihoods for good measure, while the decision makers sail away on golden parachutes to fuck up another good company with their nonsense.

But I digress, in answer to your questions:

3.5 out of 5 stars. Available instantly on compatible devices. Build Paradise Island & Fishing Bay: Zombie Surviving Colorful Mysterious Game. There's also a social element to the game, as you can invite friends, view other players' islands, and work your way up a worldwide leaderboard. Overall, Paradise Island is a fun and addictive.

> Did they expect the game to last forever?

Most casual gamers don't think about this stuff in this way. Hell, many of the regular kind don't either. It's the new shiny thing and everyone loves it because it's new and shiny, let's all play it for awhile until the next new shiny comes out, then we'll all go play that and forget however much money we sunk into the old one.

> As a game designer/community manager, what would one do to make the shutdown of a beloved game be perceived in a somewhat positive (if bittersweet) light to the players?

Paradise Island Game Kings

I wouldn't. I'd make a game with longevity in mind instead of just making as much money as I possibly could as quickly as possible, and avoid setting unrealistic goals so I didn't need to shut down a game hauling in what was apparently a sizeable portion of 200 million bucks a year, which should be more than enough to sustain a reasonably sized business, because I hadn't managed to corner the entire mobile game market to make some investor cudhole happy.

Paradise Island Game Download

Sorry if the bitterness is strong here. I'm passionate about work like this and I don't care how casual a game might be, it clearly had a lot of fans, was making a lot of money, but now is shut down and 78 people are out of work because some arsehole high in a company somewhere wasn't making enough gold to put under his wings.

The whole thing is sad and stupid and unnecessary.