EA shutting down online game servers

[piggeh]

I found this news piece quite shocking:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2...m_campaign=rss

list of servers EA are shutting down from next month:


April 6, 2010 Online Service Shutdown

Madden 09 for PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Wii and Xbox 360

February 9, 2010 Online Service Shutdown

FIFA 07 for PC
Madden 07 for Xbox 360
Madden 08 for PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PC, Wii and Xbox 360
NHL 08 for PC
Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 07 for PC
UEFA Champions League 07 for PC

February 2, 2010 Online Service Shutdown

Facebreaker for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
Fantasy Football 09 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
FIFA 07 for PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 2
Fight Night Round 3 for PlayStation 2
March Madness 07 for Xbox 360
NBA LIVE 07 for PlayStation Portable and Xbox 360
NBA LIVE 08 for PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and Wii
NBA LIVE 09 for Wii (Europe only)
NBA Street (2007) for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
NCAA Football for 08 PlayStation 2
NCAA Football for 09 PlayStation 2
NASCAR 08 for PlayStation 2
NASCAR 09 for PlayStation 2
NASCAR 09 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 (Europe Only)
NFL Tour for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
NHL 07 for PlayStation Portable and Xbox 360
UEFA Champions League 07 for Xbox 360

Some of these are fairly reasonable (eg the 07 titles). However, it's shocking that they're shutting down servers for the 09 titles only around a year after their release. If you bought these for online play you would only have around a year of game time before the game becomes useless in online mode. Surely there should be some underwriting by companies to ensure that gameservers stay online for a set period of time (say, 3 years) as otherwise it could seriously undermine consumer confidence.

[kalniel]

Surely there should be some underwriting by companies to ensure that gameservers stay online for a set period of time (say, 3 years) as otherwise it could seriously undermine consumer confidence.

There is - just read the manual for any EA game. Can't remember how long it is, but they do clearly say they'll give at least a months notice before shut down, which is fair enough if no-one is using the servers.

[Saracen]

Assuming that list is accurate, and I have no reason to suppose it isn't, it merely serves to reinforce my view that I will not buy any game that requires an online facility to run. In my case, it isn't online play as I'm not interested on that anyway, but rather online activation. But the point is the same - I won't buy a game where I can be held hostage to fortune, and someone can pull the server plug and I find myself, money spent, high and dry.

I just hope people see this as a wake-up call, to the fact that these companies will do what they think is in their interests, regardless of gamers. We are no more than mobile wallets to them, and personally, I'm not putting myself in a position where I can be kippered like this, even if the price is abstaining from games I'd otherwise have bought because I wanted to play them.

Unlike piggeh, I'm not shocked by this ... or even particularly surprised.

[piggeh]

True, I imagine they currently have a certain level of usage which they deem as negligible. I wonder though, if their financial position worsened further, if they would have to move the goalposts and get rid of more popular servers? It would make sense of such things were underwritten though so that consumers couldn't potentially be screwed a few months after purchasing a games title.

[Jay]

They should create an update to free the game from the EA servers and allow the community to create there own servers

[Flash477]

I don't see why they have to have the servers controlled by them anyway - if you were looking at something like an MMO then you could understand the reason for servers to be run by them, but not for these games.

If they were worried about lost sales if people didn't host the game then they would just need to host the games for say the first 6 months until the playergroup gets around to hosting their own.

[Terbinator]

Wasn't this a sticking point between MS and EA when Live originally came onto the scene. MS didn't like the idea of EA having control over when the servers are up and running (and when there disconnected) to their choosing. Then MS shutsdown the Shadowrun servers themselves. However the 09 titles are for Europe where i don't imagine said titles sold well and probably zero people online now - although i do accept the moral stance people take on said issue.

[daveyhue]

Bad news for PC gaming but to be honest I class most of them as "console" games which aren't very good anyway.

[simonfitba]

They should create an update to free the game from the EA servers and allow the community to create there own servers

Spot on, mate. If they don't (which they won't) then it's a disgrace.

[Yosh]

Its all junk sport games, i would assume they have 2010 servers and mid year the 2011 servers will go up so they are just recycling the old servers, its nothing surprising, and nothing to be shocked about.

If they didn't shut the servers down for old versions it would cost them an absolute fortune.

[chuckskull]

They do this pretty much once a year. Nothing new. Kick in the nuts if you happen to like one of the games involved.

[arknor]

just one of the many reasons i will try to avoid EA games at all costs if they dont allow third party servers.

EA have always had a bad reputation when it comes to the liftime of the servers they run.

[Konata]

Isn't this also to entice you into buying next year's installment of the game?

It looks that way with almost all of them, at least it's not something like the command and conquer games.

[Saracen]

Isn't this also to entice you into buying next year's installment of the game?

It looks that way with almost all of them, at least it's not something like the command and conquer games.

Perhaps, but unless you want to regard a game purchase as a rental, it's e3ffect on me is to entice me out of buying their games at all.

If they said, up front, that they will prvode servers for x months and people knew and understood that when buying, then fair enough. Otherwise, it's bit bit like buying a car from Ford, that only runs on Ford-branded petrol and then a year or so later, Ford announcing they're stopping selling that Mark 1 petrol and only supplying Mark 2 petrol, and here's our current model range that use Mark 2 petrol. It'd entice me to buy anything except Ford.

There's an old saying ... "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me".

If people get screwed by this and continue to buy their games, they certainly can't be surprised if they get screwed again. I won't be among those risking that again. But .... if people buy a game and expect to get 12 or 18 months gaming out of it, after which you regard it as dead anyway, then maybe they don't care that much if they think they've had their money's worth by then. I don't it see it like that though.

But what this does tell me is that these companies will do what's right for their bottom line, and if they figure that costs are getting too much, they'll just cut service and never mind if gamers that paid good money for their products and are still enjoying them are left high and dry.

So if a game can operate standalone, without either requiring servers to run or even just to install and/or authenticate, I'm interested. If they won't, and if my continued enjoyment of what I paid for is hostage to fortune like this, then I simply won't buy it in the first place.

[Zak33]

tbh it's as bad as my old rant about games manufacturers not hostingt the patch's/updates for their own games and out sourcing them to sites that demand you sign up to gain the patch you need.

I'm fairly cautious with my game choices... I like games with massive online fan bases of clans etc who host their own stuff.

Hence: IL-2, CoD 4 and W@W, ARMA being my favourites.

It's not just the hosting.. it's the community I'm looking for in a game.

[Jay]

There's an old saying ... "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me".

I thought that one went

"fool me once, shame on....shame on you. Fool me....you can't get fooled again"