Only two months after relaunching the failed Internet arena of The Sims Online as EA-Land, the virtual world's real-life developers have made the decision to permanently shut down servers on August 1, 2008.

Breaking the news via its official blog, Electronic Arts has ended its subscription billing effective immediately, making the last three months of EA-Land play free for all members. Those people who've been paying for the service as of today will receive $15 off any game at the online EA Store, or three months' free subscription at Club POGO.

Since its original inception in 2002 as an extension of the globally successful The Sims franchise, The Sims Online met with limited success and was eventually abandoned by the company and the game's staff within a year. One of the game's original creators, senior VP Luc Barthelet, returned to the game's development process in March 2007, promising a new project coded TSO-E that would add custom content, fix its economy from an exploit-based inflation, and provide active updates and improvements to the virtual world. Though the game was rebranded and key changes were implemented this past February, it unfortunately wasn't enough to prevent its closure.

In his final post on the EA-Land site, Barthelet wrote a heartfelt missive to the game's fans and active participants. "Thank you for helping us, pushing us and making us more flexible, wiser, and smarter! The virtual worlds are still in their infancy, I sincerely hope we will have the opportunity to be creative together again."