Over at the EA forums, developer Playfish has announced that three of its games will be taken offline in the near future: Pirates Ahoy, Poker Rivals, and Gangster City.

It all started out so innocently. For years now, Facebook has been rightly or wrongly associated with disarmingly endearing characters and bucolic bouts of farming, and most brutal action largely goes on in text in grittier games such as Mafia Wars. MetroGames’ Auto Hustle seeks to change all that. Taking Rockstar’s famed and controversial Grand Theft Auto formula and sprinkling it with a few doses of social gaming, Auto Hustle brings GTA’s saga of car theft, mass murder, and inevitable reckless driving to Facebook while suffering a few wrecks in the process.

The game loads. A comic book inspired cut scene begins. A voice-over starts. From the moment you first step into Gangster City you know this isn’t just another Facebook game. It’s a story. It’s an adventure. It’s something we’ve never seen before – a Facebook game with a compelling narrative. Playfish games have taken the Facebook RPG structure popularized by Mafia Wars and turned it on its head, and we’re loving every second of it.