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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."
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."
That's why non-MMO multiplayer games should always allow users to run their own servers. I still play the original Unreal and Quake 3 online because of this.
Amen. If they are going to end support, they should release the source to both game and servers, that way the community could continue to host servers and the ranking system of they want.
I agree that play has dwindled to almost nothings. Some hugely popular games like JKA have fewer than a dozen players on at any one time over dozens of servers sitting almost empty, but fun times are still had. One the other hand, there are still a lot of people playing Tribes and Tribes 2 mods, so community support for some games could be quite large. I would think it would be that way for Battlefield 2.
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Except these are offline games with a multiplayer component, which is rendered useless without the servers to host it. This is very different to the licensed MMORPG-type games.
Can I still play Skate or Die on my C64?
Mostly random stuff.
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.
This is where I see a niche market. A company that provides multiplayer access for legacy games... stuff like older C&C games, NWN, and many other games that are still playable, but may not be worth it financially to keep the servers up.
Given the choice, I'd go with a paid subscription model because one is paying for the servers, not the game, so the multiplayer access is for all the games. One could also add stuff like the NWN/NWN2 vault for easy download of player-made content as well as FPS maps/scripts.
However, I don't know if a sub model is viable, so what might work is getting newer indy games to use it, perhaps adding a couple dollars to the price of the game in order for it to use the multiplayer functionality for a couple years.
Maybe this might be something for gog.com to make? GogNet anyone?
> If they programmed it correctly
As a server admin, if this is your standard for correct server side programming, I've never seen a correctly programmed application in my entire 30 year career.
In my experience, server application migrations rarely function flawlessly across OS versions. Most of the time, major application modifications need to be made.
I agree with you on the server code, however. If they're going to abandon it, they might as well open source it.
No they aren't stealing. They paid for the game upfront. There is no theft involved.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
the only reason why MMO games DONT let players run their own servers is that they make no money from them. im sure blizzard wouldnt mind letting people have private servers as long as they still paid for the content and the subscription... but generally speaking, they are stealing.
You can't steal an intangible, you fucking idiot. I know that's not very diplomatic, but for fucks sakes, this is "News for Nerds", not the bloody short bus.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
So buying a game and not continually paying the company to be able to continue playing the game is stealing?
Imagine how much I'm stealing by not buying the game in the first place! Not as in pirating it but as in refusing to deal with a game where I need to pay for a subscription just for the "privilege" of playing the game I purchased.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
What a combination of naivete and FUD... the mind boggles!
First of all, the case law on this topic was in fact Blizzard v. BNetD, where Blizzard objected to people running their own servers despite the fact that there was no content or subscription associated with it. That pretty much blows your claim that "Blizzard wouldn't mind" out of the water. Second, it is entirely unreasonable, and perhaps even slanderous, to claim that "generally speaking" people must have committed copyright infringement based solely on the fact that they wanted to host their own multiplayer games!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I've seen way too many internets-enabled things get orphaned and made inoperable when various service providers decide to end support. Some not even all that old.
They either need to guarantee some period of service (which will also call attention to the fact that support will one day be lost along with the ability to use whatever program or device), or allow users some alternative for when they do retire something.
I think it is unreasonable to demand that products be supported in perpetuity, but companies need to also understand it isn't right to orphan and render software or devices unusable. They need to open it up, remove DRM with a patch, or do whatever it takes to allow products people pay for to continue to be used. Or state very clearly (not in the fine print) that said device or software will likely cease to work past some date, but is guaranteed to work until that date.
There is precedence for this in DVD digital downloads. They clearly state the download is available until some time or other, and the buyer knows when that date is (if they read the package).
They should be forced by law to release that source code. The only reason the public granted them copyright in the first place was so that the work could eventually become Public Domain. If they're going to lock it away instead, then they've violated the social contract and no longer deserve the privilege of holding a monopoly on it.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Maybe this might be something for gog.com to make? GogNet anyone?
That's quite cool idea, actually.
I oppose the very idea of "professional entertainment", be it musicians, athletes, actors or games programmers.
Let me get this straight: you oppose all forms of compensated entertainment? So you consume no music, no movies, no fictional books, no games of any kind (electronic or otherwise), view no works of art...nothing at all? Or do you consume these things but just presume that people should never be paid for providing them to you?
I'm not about to shill for the copyright-manipulating media conglomerates, but IMO your viewpoint is either hopelessly extreme or ridiculously hypocritical. If people choose to entertain someone else, that effort has intrinsic value. Now exactly what that value might be is debatable and purely subjective based upon the value it has to those consuming said entertainment, but it surely has value to those who consume it, otherwise they wouldn't. You pay for people to fix your food at restaurants, or to build your computer components, or any number of other trades that require someone with a particular skill to perform a particular service. Why should entertainment alone be considered a pro bono profession?
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8:
(emphasis added)
Also, this article quotes and discusses correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison that shows their reasoning behind the issue. Jefferson eloquently defined the essence of the Public Domain:
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I'm thinking they should be on the hook for supporting them for 95 years: the length of their copyright terms.