YoVillians rejoice; your kingdom is saved. Players of the social virtual world game will be excited to hear that their play can continue as YoVille, which was acquired by Zynga a few years ago, will not be shuttered as planned. Instead, it is now the wholly owned property of London, ON-based Big Viking Games, and will be transferred completely (with all game history and profile details intact) to its new owner as of May 11. As part of the deal, YoVille also gets a rebrand, and becomes YoWorld.
YoVille players are advised to delete their accounts by May 9 if they don’t want to transfer their game data and player details to the new owners using this web form, but based on the reaction to previous posts about the fate of this once-doomed social world sim, most will be more than overjoyed to make the change rather than face the loss of the sum total of their time spent with the app.
Big Viking Games is co-founded by the original creator of YoVille, so in a way it’s going home. The social game had shed players since its peak, but still represented a fairly large and active community, so the gaming startup taking it over is likely looking to capitalize on that remaining passionate fan base. The startup originally revealed its plans to re-acquire the title to TechCrunch back in February.