The Short-Lived Family Guy Video Game That Has Been Entirely Forgotten

When it comes to video games that are based on movies or TV shows, you can certainly do a lot better than “Family Guy Online,” a short-lived MMORPG game from 2012. The game allowed you to create your own character and walk around Quahog, completing important tasks for the characters like “Beat up Chris’ bully” or “Help Quagmire out on a date.” 

That may not sound that exciting for you, and it didn’t sound all that exciting to gamers at the time either. That’s why the game was never popular enough to justify moving out of the beta phase. After just eight months of being available to the public, the developers announced they’d be shutting the game down. By January 2013 the game was no more; the closest thing you can get to playing it is watching old walkthrough videos on YouTube:

If I had to guess why the game never took off based on the gameplay I’ve watched, I’d say it’s because the game has little appeal for fans outside the show. You don’t have to be a fan of “The Simpsons” to appreciate the magic that was the 2003 game, “The Simpsons: Hit & Run,” but it’s very hard to imagine a non-“Family Guy” fan finding anything interesting about this “Family Guy”-centric game. There’s very little skill or strategy required to accomplish any of the tasks; to win the fight against Chris’ bully, for instance, all you have to do is click on the bully and click the hit button underneath. As long as you can do that, you’ve got it. 

Unfortunately, “Family Guy Online” just felt like too much of a lazy cash grab to be a success. There were few coherent storylines, with the game’s narrative instead opting for just a string of references to the show. Often, your prize for completing a task was that you’d get to watch a clip from the show, but if you want to watch “Family Guy” clips you can already just put on the show at any time. The game was an ad for the show first, and a playable game second. 

Meanwhile, “The Simpsons” released another video game around the same, a mobile one called “Tapped Out” where users got to design their own city. Described in the ads as “life-ruiningly addictive,” this game is a lot of fun (too much fun, even) for anyone looking for a steady supply of dopamine boosts. I started playing the game in high school and had to quit after a few weeks because it was taking up all my free time; meanwhile, players even today will talk about this game like it’s an addictive drug. 

“I loved this game so much I had to stop cold turkey,” wrote one Redditor in the “Simpsons” subreddit. “I was waking up in the middle of the night during special events to ensure I got all the collectibles. It consumed me and I loved it. Tried to print my city out at work in color and got in trouble then everyone needed a code to use the printer.”

“Tapped Out” lasted for over a decade before the developers, EA Mobile, shut it down in January 2025, and a lot of its players are still struggling with the news. The game’s subreddit, which has 74,000 users, is now filled with posts lamenting the game’s shutdown and wondering if there’s any way it could come back. But much like “The Simpsons: Hit & Run,” it seems like “Tapped Out” is gone for good. 

It was sad to see both of the major “Simpsons” video games go, but both of them had a massive impact, much larger than the “Family Guy” RPG could ever dream of. Not to rag on “Family Guy” too much for not being as good as “The Simpsons,” but man, it’s gotta sting for them to know that “Simpsons” supremacy extends even beyond the realm of TV. And not to add insult to injury, but the “South Park” games are consistently awesome, too.