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EA Ending Online Support For Dozens of Games
Last month Gamespy announced it would be shutting down at the end of May. Many game makers relied upon Gamespy for all of the multiplayer and online services related to their games, and there was a scramble to transition those games away from Gamespy. Now, Electronic Arts has decided it's not worth the trouble for older titles. They're terminating online support for a huge number of games. The game list includes: Battlefield 2, Crysis 1 & 2, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2, and Star Wars: Battlefront 1 & 2. EA said, "As games get replaced with newer titles, the number of players still enjoying the older games dwindles to a level - typically fewer than 1 per cent of all peak online players across all EA titles - where it's no longer feasible to continue the behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping these games up and running."
I can still play quake 2 online whenever I want :)
damn EA.. i hate you
Well then can we get the code for the server-side so we can run our own private servers to play the games we bought?
No, that link you posted to a web comic we've all seen a hundred times is not "obligatory."
There's nothing stopping third-party support for online services, which is what Battlefront 2 is transitioning to.
When you "buy" an online game, you're really just paying to use it until the company gets tired of it.
I prefer games I can keep playing without needing anyone's permission or intervention.
This final fuckoff to people stupid enough to have given EA money in the past might be a blessing in disguise.
If you're upset by this, you can only blame yourself. You knew you had no control over the game servers to begin with, and that EA could care less about games that no longer provide them steady revenue. You want control over your online multiplayer experience, buy a game where you can run your own server.
If they programmed it correctly, migration to a new server would involve "rsync *.tar.gz . && tar xfz *.tar.gz" or something similar. There is no reason that needs to be complicated, so maintenance time should be minimal.
Of course, EA isn't known for quality programming, but if they aren't going to support it, they should release the server code so people who want to can still play it.
Of course, EA isn't known for being nice, or doing anything that doesn't involve trying to make money.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
...but it's getting tiresome for them to say "NO"
After all, it's EA: knowing the source code of one of their servers would most likely let you reverse engineer the newer ones...
Back when I was playing the Mass Effect series I needed support on a couple of occasions.
I attempted in vain to get assistance via the legitimate support channels.
I quickly found out their "support" isn't worth the time and effort and I was got more help via forums, etc;
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Can I still play Skate or Die on my C64?
Mostly random stuff.
They should have to provide some way where customers of those games can still play. Otherwise If there was no life span in the EULA I should be able to get my money back.
Screw EA after their Sim City debacle. I'll only be buying their titles at bargain basement prices on steam (i.e. $10) if that from now on.
They have _zero_ percent chance I will spend $50+ on any title they publish ever again, period.
The official servers for at least Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 have been offline since last year, so this recent announcement won't impact them. Community run servers have taken over for those games (e.g. http://www.nwnlist.com./
"Thank you for playing our fine line of rental games. If you wish to continue playing, please upgrade to our latest game and continue paying your subscription fees in a timely manner."
--Regards,
Electronic Asshats
Good people go to bed earlier.
"As games get replaced with newer titles, the number of players still enjoying the older games dwindles to a level - typically fewer than 1 per cent of all peak online players across all EA titles
So every EA online game will die when the figure on a spreadsheet drops below a certain threshold. Why not open source the server software rather than abandon it?
Trolling is a art,
I'm far from an EA fanboy. In fact, I hate them as much as the next guy, but...
How many of those games actually have a very active online community that's getting annihilated by this move?
That's right, none. Kids these days are pretty fickle and will move to the next online game and drop the last one, making it a barren wasteland online, as quickly as Carmen switched love affairs.
Glad I pirated those and never bought them.
When you guys are feeling screwed, I feel like I enjoyed them for free so losing online (which I never had) isn't a big deal.
Still a new WIN for me.
Ouch, there are some seminal titles in there. MOHAA is one of the most influential games I could name.
Sure - but if you call them asking for technical support, they're likely to not be too helpful.
...better than to buy or play and EA games. They were cool back when it was Larry Bird vs. Dr. J 1-on-1, or Pinball Construction Set. EA has sucked for so many years now, I'm baffled that any nerd or geek would ever give them money for a game. And that's WITHOUT getting in to all the labor offenses.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
That's why those of us with more than two neurons to rub together are rightfully concerned with the latest fad of forcing even the single-player experience to exist online (see: Diablo III). What happens to these games when the publisher decides that they've made all the money they are going to make, and finds it is no longer profitable to continue "online support?"
What I'm wondering is this: is EA actually shutting these down in RESPONSE to Gamespy shutting down servers, or did these games run on Gamespot's servers? I know, for instance, that Nintendo is shutting down the servers for the original DS and Wii, but that's because they used Gamespot as their server provider for those systems.
They bought EA games. Aren't there enough reasons not to buy EA already?
God spoke to me
Any solid grounds for a class action? I know you give away this right when you "accept" the EULA but... i didn't buy a rental game.
Can't you hordes of blithering wandering lawyers come up with something here?
Because SW Jedi Knight, SW Battlefront, KotOR, Crysis, Mass Effect, SimCity, The Sims, Dragon Age, and Red Alert are all fun games.
Bitch and moan about their business practices all you want, they still make games people want to play.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
I hope they don't drop support for the Adventure Construction Kit. That is the greatest game of all time.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
Well done EA, you greedy parasitic fucks.
Mod parent up! The class action is an excellent idea.
Yeah, right.
There's some really hilarious comments on this article, mostly about how awful EA is because of this.
Oddly when 2k did the same thing for the same reason, it wasn't such a big deal.
I guess the Internet just needs something to hate.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
"That's why non-MMO multiplayer games..." - AC
"the only reason why MMO games DONT let players run their own servers" - Xicor
None of the games listed are MMOs... what purpose does a comment about MMOs not allowing players to run their own servers serve to further along conversation about non-MMOs?
I'm seriously confused where this vitriol even comes from. Sounds like someone just wants to call something "stealing" not paying the subscription means you don't get the official content. most MMOs that have private servers have secondary content that's not the same as the official servers. so you're not stealing the content. The subscriptions pays for the ongoing development and maintenance of the servers. By not using their servers you're not causing them load and don't need to maintain their servers nor benefit from the ongoing development. that's what the monthly fees go towards, not to the game itself, that was from the initial purchase price.
I suspect that at this point much of the old game maintenance could be wrapped up into a single small working group (if they haven't already) so the cost should be very low. the demands upon the various servers and whatnot should also be greatly diminished along with the fact that with a combination of vastly more powerful servers available and the use of VMs should reduce the per user cost of running these servers to a tiny fraction of their original cost.
With enough squeezing they might even be able to maintain break even. But why would I suggest that this is important? On the surface it isn't probably a good business move. But dig down and I suspect that people will look at their newer online games and wonder how long they will live. This thus will reduce the value all their future products. No to mention, maintaining good will with the older product users will increase the chances of future purchases. Also I don't think that users of older games would terribly mind if in the loading screen there was an add for some similar game that came out; just as long as they didn't start playing other MBA games such as making the loading game longer to load so that you stare at the ad for longer.
But nope, some MBA twat fiddled with a spreadsheet and saw that the tiny amount of revenue lost by cutting the old games was dwarfed by their continued maintenance costs. This then made the bottom line look so much better and he dreamed about the bonus he would get for being so smart. But the problem for even this sleazy MBA was that how can he spreadsheet the lost goodwill? With the huge vagaries of the game market the reviewers, the economy, and the console climate at the time of release any goodwill factors would be very hard to measure. This does not mean they don't exist and these influences are a constant and a constant influence will trash the compound math of a company's growth. Plus they can show up at the worst times. If a company with poor relations with their customers comes out with a genuine blockbuster then it might only hurt sales a bit. But when they release a so so game it is at that point where the poor relations will be the tipping point for a huge percentage of their customers pushing that so so game into being a sales flop. As we have all seen many of the top companies have had a bad run of so so games and in many cases these bad runs have killed the companies.
Impossiroo!
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
If you don't maintain your property, you should lose it to somebody who will. Copyright is a privilege, and it's supposed to be temporary, even in the best of times.. Let's not forget that.
Posting anonymously to avoid repeated mod bombing like the last time I brought this up. I'm not going to let the shills fuck up my account.
- F
To be honest, the case cited is the very reason I haven't given Blizzard any of my money for its more recent titles.
I know I'm just one guy who the company doesn't even notice. But the fact the company took issue with the BNetD thing and fought over it in court sent a clear signal to me that I better send my hard-earned dollars elsewhere when choosing computer game purchases for entertainment.
It simply doesn't seem like a good value proposition to pay the asking price for these games that require central servers to function, AND to know the company doesn't believe in letting 3rd. parties build or host alternate options.
I would have really liked to play Diablo 3 or Starcraft II, especially because as a Mac OS X user, my gaming options are pretty limited to begin with. But I'm not a "hard core gamer" anyway. I'm too old for that and have too many other demands on my free time. I just want to know that if I pay $40-50 for a game, I can keep it around and play it whenever I like -- even if that's a number of years after it was purchased, and won't find it's become unusable because the manufacturer decided it was time to kill it off.
Any "reasonable priced" upgrade program for original discs? That would be good. If you have paid $60 for a BF2, and BF4 is again $60, they should allow discs owners to upgrade for no more than $15. I would like to be a fan of game companies again....but they are doing exactly the opposite for a couple of bucks.
Why did a company like LucasArts license their IP to EA instead of to a more respectable company with better labor and business practices?
I believe Maxis sold its IP for the Sim titles to EA long before EA developed the bad reputation it has today, so that's kind of understandable. But surely, there are cases where holders of IP that's desirable to obtain for video games could sell to a more ethical business.
So do hundreds of other companies. It's not like EA is the only company making fun games. Nobody could ever possibly play every game ever made, even if we just limited it to the fun ones and played games 24x7, there isn't time for it. So for me, when it comes to deciding between an EA game and something else, it's pretty easy to decide that because EA generally sucks I'll choose a something else every time.
The companies that made these great games were absorbed by EA. EA in fact does not make any good games.
Typically, after a period of just a few years the companies that produced these fine titles become nothing more than shadows.
Hey, we can only vote with our own money. If everyone did that, bad companies would go under or at least start listening.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
IIRC, a lot of these games DO still support LAN play - BF1942 and most C&C games - so they should still work for local games (or I suppose Hamachi etc)...
Working extra hard to take back the worst company in America title eh?
Look out Comcast.
Literally none of these games was made by EA themselves.
JK was made by RavenSoft. Acquired, gutted, and destroyed by EA.
Battlefront has nothing to do with EA at all. Made by Pandemic, published by LucasArts. Both versions.
KoTOR, Mass Effect, and DAO were made by Bioware before EA management got to them. Consequently, they were gutted and producing crap that's kind-of-ok for an EA product.
Crysis was produced by CryTek, who are an independent studio.
SimCity was created by Marxis. Acquired by EA who somehow forgot to destroy the 4th installment, but came back with vengeance for the latest. Marxis was consequently gutted and destroyed by EA.
RA was created by Westwood. Acquired, gutted, and destroyed by EA.
You know, I get the funny feeling that there is some kind of pattern here.
If everyone did that, bad companies would go under or at least start listening.
Or you would find out many people might have different ideas of what a "bad company" is.
EA just announced in a later press release "Just stop buying our games. If it has EA on the box, DO NOT buy it. Seriously, if it's not DRM issues then it's nickel and dime DLC or we'll kill the game as soon as it's not profitable. Stay far away from our games!"
To be honest, the case cited is the very reason I haven't given Blizzard any of my money for its more recent titles.
I know I'm just one guy who the company doesn't even notice. But the fact the company took issue with the BNetD thing and fought over it in court sent a clear signal to me that I better send my hard-earned dollars elsewhere when choosing computer game purchases for entertainment.
It simply doesn't seem like a good value proposition to pay the asking price for these games that require central servers to function, AND to know the company doesn't believe in letting 3rd. parties build or host alternate options.
I would have really liked to play Diablo 3 or Starcraft II, especially because as a Mac OS X user, my gaming options are pretty limited to begin with. But I'm not a "hard core gamer" anyway. I'm too old for that and have too many other demands on my free time. I just want to know that if I pay $40-50 for a game, I can keep it around and play it whenever I like -- even if that's a number of years after it was purchased, and won't find it's become unusable because the manufacturer decided it was time to kill it off.
This article is about EA. EA (not Activision Blizzard) is removing online games. Blizzard is still supporting D2 and other games.
Both use gamespy to list their server only, not to run it.
There is a game wedge that creates a new listing service, but players have to know and install it to see others servers.
Gamespy delisted nwn2 a year ago, this isn't new news by any means.
Its all about the monthly fee and keeping you buying new games, get with it already. Or check out openMW and help.
Small problem: Some people just bought these games! GOG.com?
If you're not doing the WinXP oh please let it die we'll give you five more years but really we'll still let you download the old updates method, they really?
At least LAN still works so start hamachi and get medal of honor allied assault running.
I have a cheap, simply solution. No copyright protection for any software that the original owner or their assignees decides to desupport. So, don't want to do security patches (Hello Windows 95), don't want to run the server farm the game connects to to make multi-player mode work anymore... This is the company's way of saying, we _are_ done making money on this, now, it is only useful as a museum piece, and museums of any sort should not have to worry about being hammered with infringement.
If they don't want to support the game, They should just package the server as a closed source code and sell it to anyone who wants to support old games.
No need to scare the company by saying it needs to be free and open source.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Hard to measure. Yes. But that is where the fiction of the modern MBA comes from. They claim to have studied managerial accounting, etc. But the reality is that about the only thing they leave school with is a crass interpretation of the bottom line starting with their own bottom line.
If instead EA was using someone with an actual education, such as an economist then they would stand a better chance of someone who understands the difference between the micro(today's bottom line) and the macro(long term damage to the company and potentially the industry). But what I have seen in large organizations is the once you let one MBA slither in then they suddenly start replacing all the other management with MBAs (time to let the professional managers take over children) and poof you now have more TPS reports than you can shake a stick at while the company sinks into the swamp; but don't worry swamp sinking is an industry best practice.
Oh and when the company finally sinks who gets the multi million dollar retention bonuses? The engineers or whatever core employees the company must have to survive? Nope the MBAs feather their nests with any money they can get their hands on. But don't worry, that nest feathering can be supported by 8 excellent white papers.
I didn't even know EA was involved in any of the Wii RockBand servers. So much for playing online with my brother and sister in-law.
As far as I know, Maxis didn't sell the Sims to EA. Maxis is a subsidiary of EA and has been since EA bought Maxis in 1997 (aprox. 3 years before The Sims was released), kinda hard to sell something to an entity that you're a part of.
Games when the find out why they cant play their game will never buy a game from them again.
Most of these games are being shut down because they relied on GameSpy's master servers and matchmaking systems, which are finally being shut down. A lot of these servers are actually fairly simple, and new master servers could be set up, but most of these games are also 10+ years old and it's not seen as worth the effort. I don't know much about the other games, but I'm fairly sure the Battlefield games all can still be played online if you know the address of the server you're trying to connect to.
Everyone wants them to open source the server code, but that's unlikely. They're EA. Would everyone be happy with a server binary? Seems like a middle-ground option..
Starflight (both the original and sequel) was EA, and it was awesome.
Quite a bit more recent than PCS.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
...what exactly where you expecting? Shitty business practices is what they do.
It should be mandated by law that games which hit EOL should have their server binaries released to the public.
Some games were not made by EA originally, but were acquired by it later - sometimes much later. Both NWN titles, for example.
Also, while many games are fun, some are unique. NWN, for example, is unique in allowing people to build extensive worlds to host their own "mini-MMO" experience in, and in providing a DM client for human-guided roleplaying experience.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
bring back Motor City Online!!
I do not need some special "right" to host a game using my own equipment; that's absurd.
The holding in the bnetd case was absurd by your definition, but it's the law.
I'm not sure why people think games and software are special in this regard.
Unlike physical goods, copies of works of authorship in digital form must be copied into a computer's memory before being used, and copyright law gives a work's author the exclusive right to authorize the making of such copies. Besides, warranties expire after several years.
amuse myself instead by jamming with my friends
Whose music do you play? If your own, how do you ensure you didn't make the same mistake as George Harrison (Bright Tunes v. Harrisongs, accidental copyright infringement)?
If you expect a single up-front fee to cover the ongoing costs of an ongoing service in perpetuity, as opposed to an ongoing fee, I guess you become a "freetard" as soon as the depreciation of your copy of the game has completed.
agreed very cool idea... no mod points available so just a :-)
Also: Seven Cities of Gold, and Music Construction Set.
Google for "Molten WoW", they rake in so much via donors that they can pay actual coders to work on the emu software. The gameplay isn't nearly as robust and they are a full expansion behind, but last I looked there were still ~20,000 people across a half-dozen servers.
I can't comment on the other games, but as an old-time Neverwinter Nights 1 player, I can say with certainty that players can still directly connect to a player-run server if they know the IP address. What we're losing is just the ability to connect randomly to people on a service. Random players hooking up for communal play doesn't really work out that well, if the truth be told. There are a lot of play styles, tons of different ideas about how to extract fun out of a game, varying levels of maturity. Not all are compatible. Best thing to do is to look for like-minded people on forums, or try one of the persistent servers who also announce their existence on forums.
There are very serious laws about information stealing. And that puts all your line of tought into the trash.
A lot of people, myself included simply do not buy EA games anymore. I spend rougly 1200$ per year in games. And For already 4 years I refuse to spend a single penny in ANYTHING from EA.
Not all gamers are idiots.