EA shutting down online services for 12 games
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Electronic Arts dropping online support for a dozen games beginning tomorrow, including The Sims 2, FIFA 11, and NBA Jam.
Beginning tomorrow, Electronic Arts will shut down online services for a dozen more games, including FIFA 11 and NBA Jam. In a statement to the company's Services Updates page, EA explained that the decision to retire aging titles is "never easy," but said doing so allows IT staff to focus on keeping online experiences for newer titles at a level that gamers expect.
In addition to FIFA 11 and NBA Jam, EA will turn off online services for The Sims 2, NCAA Football 11, and NHL 11 during January.
The full shutdown schedule is posted below.
January 3: FIFA Manager 11 (PC)
January 11: FIFA Soccer 11 (PC, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360), FIFA Soccer 11 Ultimate Team (PS3, Xbox 360), Madden NFL 11 (PS3, Wii, Xbox 360), Madden NFL 11 Ultimate Team (Xbox 360, PS3), NBA Jam, but not the On Fire edition (Xbox 360, PS3), NBA Live 10 (PS3, Xbox 360), NCAA Football 11 (Xbox 360, PS3), NHL 11 (PS3, Xbox 360), NHL Ultimate Team (PS3, Xbox 360)
January 14: The Sims 2 (PC, Mac, TheSims2.com)
January 19: Trenches II (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch)
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
256 comments
Ok for the games that come out yearly I expected those servers to be shut down sooner but for any NBA Jam title I never expected it as it would not impact on whether or not I would buy the "On Fire" version.
4 Like First use Online Pass to try to prevent the second hand market when a game is new, then switch off the servers after 2 years to make second hand copies all but worthless.
Fifa gets 2 years, while the Shadowrun servers are still going, 5 years later with about 100 people playing at one time, max.
seems pretty standard really, turn off servers that arent being used, frees up resources and money, which can be put to better use, while EA does a bunch of shady crap, this practice is rather common.
7 Like My God, you people are thick.
Yes, EA is an evil, evil company, that do all sorts of shady things on a regular basis. I get that. But guess what? This isn't one of those things. Before you post into this with blind fanboy rage, ask yourself a question.. do you play any of these games, today? In fact, DID you play any of these games, EVER? I doubt it. Most of these games are '09-'10.
Why pay for servers on games that no one will play? I agree that private servers would be preferable, but who do you know that's willing to go through the trouble of setting up a private server for, say, FIFA Soccer 2011 or NHL '11? Exactly, no one cares, which is why they're shutting down the online services.
@yearssomuch I'm sure EA appreciates your efforts against the thick people on their behalf.
@Tsuchikage There's a newer version called On Fire Edition. That's probably why they shut this down
1 Like Good start. Hopefully one day all pubs and devs will follow, and shut down ALL online services.
Maybe gaming will be fun again.
2 Like @Syk0_k03r Sounds like somebody often gets their ass kicked when entering online play.
2 Like @Syk0_k03r What I take from that is 'How dare they give us additional gaming content of diverse, interesting styles which expand replayability and give us good value for money!'
2 Like @hexhunter222 LOL!
Lets just make this perfectly clear. Online gaming is NOT interesting, diverse, nor replayable for that matter.
Rather, multiplayer is a lame fucking excuse invented to cash in off of dumb console imbeciles who think that a great game is a repetitive run-n-gun retarded shitfest.
@Syk0_k03r @hexhunter222 Console Imbeciles? I'll have you know multiplayer games were born on the PC long before consoles were cashing in on the craze, in case that was a fanboy moment you were having.
Aside from that, all I will say is that different people have different tastes. Some like pizza, others like seafood. Some like single player games, others like multiplayer games. Hell, some even enjoy both. Just because their tastes are not the same as yours, that does not make them imbeciles. You, on the other hand, are painting a very poor picture of yourself by being close-minded, condescending and insulting towards others with no justification to warrant such behavior.
@Syk0_k03r @hexhunter222 Bitter people without friends generally think that social activities are worse than any sort of loner type experiences. I've played about 80% of every high-calibur/high-quality game that's come out since 1990, and just about every game that has included co-op was more fun with a friend, and every game that had solid CORE gameplay mechanics that didn't tack on the multiplayer, has been at the very least entertaining. Get some fucking friends your age and enjoy time with them. And don't worry, they aren't Cylons like your little buddy Saul.
Seeing as how there isn't a new Live (or Elite or whatever), I think they should keep the servers for Live 10 up, assuming there's anyone still playing it. I understand why they do this for older games. I don't necessarily like it, but I understand it.
The thing I hate about it is that if they are eventually going to cut the online for a game, they shouldn't make that game online-dependent. In fact, IMO, NO game should be totally online-dependent. I think we are really starting to put the cart before the horse with all of this online stuff. It's getting to be too much.
5 Like EA and other companies are killing creativity with all this online-only business model. Back in the day when games like Half-Life came out, people could host games on their own machine. They had a healthy modding community so they could produce new maps and add all sorts of content. Half-Life became massively popular for years being the number one online game with tens of thousands of users. It lasted for years and it still goes on today. But these days, everyone wants to be the next World of Warcraft. So now they're making old franchises into online-only games where THEY are the only ones allowed to run the servers. Then when they stop making money because the number of players drops, then they end the game and don't allow the buyers to mod the game or run their own severs. This online-only business model is killing creativity. The only real solution is for smaller companies and people to put out games where people can run their own private servers. A better solution is to actually put out single player games where the authors actually have to produce content and gameplay that will keep the buyer interested.
?Online-only, where good franchises go to die...?
Shadow-Phax
Wait a minute!!!! What Nba jam server is going down?? NBA JAM, or the xbox live/psn game called Nba Jam On Fire Edition!?!?!? Why don't you guys send some light on this matter!?!?
3 Like @Zacmaccraken Straight from the article:"NBA Jam, but not the On Fire edition (Xbox 360, PS3)."
Next time re-read the article so you don't make yourself look foolish again.
@Zacmaccraken The game was also just given free to PS+ members on the 1st. Wooooo 11 days to play it fully.
2 Like Wow guys get your heads of out the sand... EA isn't doing this cause their "evil" or the "cancer" of this generation. They're doing this so they can free up resources. The games on that list are at least 3 years old. People hardly play those games any-more. I can't believe some of you, crying that BF3 will be gone when BF4 comes out. It doesn't work like that. EA spends money to keep those servers alive, those communities are dead and they're retracting their OWN resources. Those resources will probably be put into development for current and upcoming games. Stop acting like friggin children; fifa 09 was available during fifa 12 cause it had an active community.
@Hercol thats why they should start renting servers for games that actually still have active communities instead of just dropping support all together because the game is old.
Like Battle for Middle-Earth II, one of the best rts games ever.
(yes I know theres emulators and stuff to still play it online, hopefully with all the Hobbit movies they have BFME3 in the works)
@oflow @Hercol What they should do is allow anyone to run a game server by putting out a server package for Linux and Windows. I remember when they dropped some flight sims years ago from a popular hosting company. Well people made their own private server and it worked well. But now it seems that the companies don't want people hosting games, they want to control it in case it gets popular like older games did. Like Half-Life 1 and Counterstrike.
1 Like Sounds like a strategy to get everyone to buy newer sports games and make more money.
1 Like We all know what the management of that company is doing... They are currently bleeding it to death... Then they'll leave with their bonus blaming everyone one but them... And finally the industry will be able to rehabilitate itself, freed from it's cancer...
2 Like This type of shit is precisely why I like the option of local multiplayer.
I hate to conme off like an old fart (I'm 37, by the way), but I do miss the days of sitting on a couch and gaming with friends and family. Back then, many folks didn't have internet. But you could still do deathmatch (N64/PS1/Saturn FPSes), 1vs1 (fighters, like MK and Street Fighter 2), etc...
This comment has been deleted
4 Like I agree with you. When I saw that single player modes were becoming half-baked and local multiplayer and split-screen were gonna become a rarity, my tastes became increasingly RETRO really fast
But many of these kids got into gaming during the CoD/XBL era. Their understanding of entertainment is governed exclusively by propietary devices and services. So they have no idea of just how much racketeering has been done to them.
They're the type of kids who don't know system specs but can fire off name brands like there's no tomorrow. Totally f___in' programmed.
so.. i guess they'll shut battlefield 3 down when battlefield 4 is released... there goes my premium...
@PatrickJCollett um...then its time to buy BF4 premium which is what they want you to do anyway.
@PatrickJCollett *sigh* don't over react, EA hater..
BF3 is packed and all (and I mean all) the past battlefield games are still online. why? because they are active.
All the games you see above us are dead online, so why should EA keep spending money on a dead product? like anyone actually cares for the online servers of the games that were shut down.
You're BF3 premium isn't going anywhere, sir. and so isn't mine because the servers will stay online for atleast 5 years (at the very least) because BF3 was and is and huge success online unlike the games that were shut down.
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