On February 1, 2011, EA announced that The Sims 2 Store would close as of March 31, 2011 and therefore, support of The Sims 2 Store Edition had ended. As of July 17, 2011, attempts to visit TheSims2.com resulted in a screen with color bars and a message saying that the site was closed for maintenance but as of August, an error page similar to The Sims 3 website appeared. Attempts to visit sub-sections such as the BBS or the Exchange failed.