EA announces dozens of games going offline due to GameSpy closure
Electronic Arts has produced a lengthy list of games it plans to shut down after June 30, saying it has not come up with a solution to keep services running in the wake of the GameSpy closure.
Electronic Arts announced a sizable list of games that will go offline after June 30, as a result of the GameSpy online services closure. Though it still says it is investigating "community-supported options," no official solution is in place yet for games like Battlefield 2, Battlefield 1942, and various Command & Conquer games.
"Since GameSpy’s announcement, our teams have been working to evaluate options to keep services up and running," the company stated in an update (via GameSpot). "Unfortunately, due to technical challenges and concerns about the player experience, we do not have a solution at this time. Online services for EA games on the GameSpy platform will be closed down at the end of June."
Many of the most popular and still-active games are for PC, but the listings show GameSpy's servers were used for games across platforms like PlayStation 2, Wii, and DS. You can check out the full list to see all of the games being shut down.
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replySteve Watts posted a new article, EA announces dozens of games going offline due to GameSpy closure.
Electronic Arts has produced a lengthy list of games it plans to shut down after June 30, saying it has not come up with a solution to keep services running in the wake of the GameSpy closure.-
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EA: It's In The Game Until It's Not
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Seems like a good time for EA to whip through the financials of providing their own hosting. I would say, or let Steam do it, but EA's proven it won't give any business to Steam if it can be avoided. Because, EA is *NOT* about serving their customers. So, this is the end of those games.
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It seems like Gamespy is pretty integral to at least some of those games (as in built into the game UI and stuff), so replacing it may actually be difficult. Who knows if the source code or anyone that even knows what it means is around. Also, the player base is probably miniscule, and the dev and QA efforts probably won't justify it considering that they probably won't see very many additional sales from the upgrade.
Also, IDKWTF.-
You right about it being a very low roi for having to go back to an old project like that. I only even thought about it because CoH did it. Doesn't seem to perform as well as the original servers, but the other piece of it was EA stepping up to do their own hosting. There's any number of reasons why they shouldn't; which is probably why they don't. But, it would allow them to compete even more against Steam.
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EA does their own hosting or at least control the backend for their more modern games. BF4 won't suddenly lose online play because a middleware provider takes their ball and goes home.
All the games involved are either WAY old or developed by third parties (Crysis, Bulletstorm).
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What was the point of giving away BF1942 for free last month if they were just going to give players the middle finger the next month? I don't know much about networking, but is there a way that people will be able to trick some of these games that have LAN support into thinking they are on a LAN so that online play is still possible, albeit without the matchmaking?
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Gamespy only announced their shutting down a month ago. All of this is due to Gamespy closing up shop. It's not like anyone could really predict this would happen.
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Also keep in mind that the top of EA from a long way back isn't there anymore. John Riccitiello resigned last March, but also most of the Origin stuff was only spun up in the past 3 years, and EA by and large seemed to be far more concerned with getting upcoming PC titles released on Steam than they were with bringing legacy third-party matchmaking titles onto Origin.
And of course Steam is not an option because "Not Invented Here" / "Dogfooding" / insert your favorite corporate anti-pattern here.
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No, but at the same time other companies have been transitioning their older games to Steamworks without it being cost-prohibitive. 2K, Bohemia, and Capcom all have confirmed specific games being switched to Steamworks.
I could understand EA not bothering for 10+ year old titles, but converting NONE of their games? That's just cold. Especially since some originally came out as recently as 2011.
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Okay, so it's less EA bring dicks and more GameSpy dropping the ball. Hopefully he follows through and finds a way to keep matchmaking going for at least some of the bigger titles.
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Here, this will be useless in a couple of months, but you should enjoy some free time with it.
Ugh, fuck you for giving me free stuff that won't work forever!-
also, who on here really really played it after they gave it away? i know i loaded it up and found a server, marveled at how far games have come, and quit after 20 minutes.
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I already had it installed and play it every once in awhile, so it doesn't affect me, but I feel bad for people who may have gotten into it for the first time after the giveaway.
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What a wasted opportunity. This a great opening to grow Origin, and they are letting it pass them by.
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It would be an immense undertaking. That does not meant that the opportunity is not being wasted.
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what opportunity, exactly? i'm curious as to the benefit of resurrecting these 10, 12, 14 year-old games.
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I see it similarly to Nintendo's Virtual Console.
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It's not a perfect comparison, but the underlying idea is the same: you are trying to get people to buy into a platform (Nintendo or Origin). You have games they like that they may not be able to play any more. You use these games to pull people onto your platform.
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Not all the affected games are that old. Crysis 2 came out in 2011, and Crysis Warhead came out in 2008. Crysis and C&C3 came out in 2007.
Independent of any of that though, EA's announcement even admits that many of these games still have active multiplayer communities, explicitly mentioning C&C and Battlefield. Clearly they know that these games are still played and would still be a draw if they were transitioned to another service, and yet are choosing not to act on that.
Now again, I'm not saying it would be completely easy, but at the same time other companies are transitioning older games from GameSpy to other services, more than one even. Clearly they think there's money to be made there, and yet EA can't find a single game worth salvaging? This is my skeptical face.
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literally dozens of gamers will be affected
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So they gave away Battlefield 1942, just in time to shut it down?
I guess that's something. -
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Sheesh, why don't they just give these games to the GameRanger guy? http://www.gameranger.com/
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GameRanger, Tunngle, and Evolve all frown on your shenanigans. So do the new Tribes Master Servers.
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gentlemen, I do not want to say I told you so because I never did, but I always knew this would happen.
Some day this will happen with steam too and we all will be very sad.
That being said, PC games really need to keep LAN multiplayer or let the communities host their own stuff for new games.
The fact that we can still host our own quake servers give those old games longevity and allows the gamers to decide whether we should continue playing these games or not is the right thing.
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If Steam goes away while it's still under Gaben's control I wouldn't be surprised if there's a final "offline mode for everything forever" patch released prior to the shutdown.
Even outside of that, LAN mode means your ability to play multiplayer is only dependent on you and who you want to play with, rather than an outside service. I dunno if you've been paying attention recently, but Steam has been dropping out for 5-10 minutes here and there a lot lately. What if there were more disruptions? What if Steam was unavailable for hours at a time? If your game has a LAN option you and a friend can just use a VPN service and play that way without interruption. Without a LAN option you're completely at the mercy of Steam's servers. Yeah, they're reliable now, but who knows what the future will hold.-
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That's mostly been up to the individual game company, not Valve. By and large most of the games you buy on Steam have the same EULA you would find on a Retail version.
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