Topic: EA shutting down servers

[TJ Spyke]

This is exactly why I hate EA being allowed to run their own servers (for other Xbox Live games you don't need to worry about this). EA has announced they will be shutting down online servers for the following (mostly older) games on the specified dates:

December 31, 2010:
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth for PC
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II for PC
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II - The Rise of the Witch King for PC

January 11, 2011:
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II for Xbox 360
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II - The Rise of the Witch King for Xbox 360

January 17, 2011:
The Sims Carnival

February 8, 2011:
2010 FIFA World Cup for Wii and PlayStation Portable
2010 FIFA World Cup Demo for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
FIFA Soccer 07 for Xbox 360
FIFA Soccer 08 for Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable
FIFA Soccer 09 for Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, PC
FIFA Soccer 09 Ultimate Team for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
FIFA Street 3 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
FIFA Manager 10 for PC
Fight Night Round 3 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
Madden NFL 09 for Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable
Madden NFL 10 for Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable
NBA Live 08 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
NBA Live 09 for Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
NCAA Basketball 08 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
NCAA Basketball 09 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
NCAA Football 07 for Xbox 360
NCAA Football 08 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
NCAA Football 09 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
NCAA Football 10 for PlayStation 2
NFL Head Coach 09 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
NHL 08 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
NHL 09 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
UEFA Euro 08 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3

March 1, 2011:
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 for Wii

[broodwars]

They're mostly old sports games that probably an extremely low number of people were actually playing.  I don't really see why anyone should care about this outside of the Battle for Middle Earth 2 Community.  The servers for last year's sports games and most of the ones for the year before that are still up, which are probably the ones people are actually playing.

[Arbok]

Personally, I think it just sets a bad precedent. Some of these games are not that old, for example Madden 10 for the Wii came out 17 months ago.


It won't affect people who buy the games annually, which I'm sure EA is banking on, but those who pick up a new Madden "every several years" might be less happy with the news. I agree with broodwars that it's probably a small percentage, but I personally feel discontinuing online service for any game with "2010" in the title by early 2011 is bad form.

[King of Twitch]

I just logged into Mario Kart DS as NOA Reggie

6 years later

#Pro

[broodwars]

I just logged into Mario Kart DS as NOA Reggie

6 years later

#Pro

A large number of people probably still play Mario Kart DS online, just as there are probably still a large number of people playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare online, a game that launched in 2007.  I'll bet a large number of people (especially in Korea) are still playing StarCraft online, so those Battle.net servers are probably still up.  If people were still playing the games on that list in large numbers, I doubt EA would have pulled the servers.  They likely aren't (though I am curious how Battle for Middle Earth is doing), so they did.  It doesn't make good financial sense to keep servers up for games people aren't playing anymore when those servers could be shifted towards games people are still playing and will be playing in the near future.

[TJ Spyke]

I think it wouldn't matter as much if it wasn't for the fact that some Achievements can only be earned online. For example, Madden NFL 08 has an Achievement called Live Opponent. This doesn't actually require you to play online, but it is still impossible to get now because the online servers were shut down.

Other Xbox 360 games don't have this problem, but EA insisted on using their own servers.

[broodwars]

I think it wouldn't matter as much if it wasn't for the fact that some Achievements can only be earned online. For example, Madden NFL 08 has an Achievement called Live Opponent. This doesn't actually require you to play online, but it is still impossible to get now because the online servers were shut down.

Other Xbox 360 games don't have this problem, but EA insisted on using their own servers.

Welcome to being a PS3 user, where you can pretty much kiss any online trophies goodbye within 2-3 months of a game's launch because no one's playing the game.   

[MegaByte]

I'd be interested in seeing the maintenance costs for such servers.  Of all the places to cut costs, it doesn't seem like that would be an especially beneficial area.

[Chozo Ghost]

And to top this all off, wasn't EA the company that was cracking down on people being able to play used games online, where they required people to either buy the game new, or buy an additional $10 code for online access? This here is why I would really hate to pay for online access. Its a waste of money if the servers are just going to be shut down anyway. Unfortunately, without online gaming many of these games are junk now. That's $50-$60 down the toilet.

[Ian Sane]

Madden NFL 10 covers the 2010 NFL season which is NOT EVEN COMPLETED YET!  Playoffs start this weekend!  EA can't even wait until the very season the game is covering is completed to shut down the server?  Though it is for the Wii/PS2/PSP version which probably no one plays or gives a **** about.  The PS360 version is the "real" one and it is not affected.

This is inevitable.  Online games require servers and no company is going to keep a server going forever.  Hell, even if they tried eventually the company might go out of business and then where are you at?  I can play an old Atari game from a defunct company on old hardware and it will run like a dream.  You can't do that with online games.  They are not self-contained.  In fact this will probably be a very annoying problem with some of the current PC games that require one to connect online to get the damn game to even play in single player.  Doesn't Starcraft II require this?  Let's say 20 years from now Activision Blizzard has gone under.  How do you play this game in single player anymore?  I never had to worry about my old version of Super Mario Bros being disabled someday.  In the old days if you kept the hardware and the game in good condition it continued to work.

Anyway at some point the server has to shut down but I would argue that EA is jumping the gun a bit here.  2010 FIFA World Cup isn't even a year old!  This doesn't seem like some company clearing out the dead wood and closing the servers that are no longer being used.  It seems more like EA is eagerly anticipating the excuse to shut down these servers to get you to buy a new game.  Publishers want the remote off switch.  They don't want you to find one game and play the **** out of it for years and years.  If you are content with what you have you are less likely to continue to buy new games.  The ideal solution is to disable old games.  Now they can't really fully do that (yet) but this is pretty close to it.  They are taking something that had to happen at some point - shutting down old servers - and using it to their advantage.

Hell, someday Nintendo will have all sorts of online stuff shut down, too.  But they thus far are giving those games a lot of leeway.  EA wants to shut these down ASAP and is looking for an excuse to do it.  No game that is less than a year old should EVER have its server shut down unless the company is going out of business.

[Morari]

In fact this will probably be a very annoying problem with some of the current PC games that require one to connect online to get the damn game to even play in single player.  Doesn't Starcraft II require this?  Let's say 20 years from now Activision Blizzard has gone under.  How do you play this game in single player anymore?  I never had to worry about my old version of Super Mario Bros being disabled someday.  In the old days if you kept the hardware and the game in good condition it continued to work.

Singleplayer can be played right now without internet connection. It just needs a quick crack. That said, Blizzards recent reliance on Battle.net (and omission of LAN options) is one of many reasons I will sadly be sitting out Diablo III. The insane amount of DRM we're seeing nowadays will ensure that most games won't work properly some time down the road. Consoles are quickly getting that way as well. Giving users the ability to host their own listen and dedicated servers will only solve the issue of multiplayer servers being shut down.

[broodwars]

Madden NFL 10 covers the 2010 NFL season which is NOT EVEN COMPLETED YET!  Playoffs start this weekend!  EA can't even wait until the very season the game is covering is completed to shut down the server?  Though it is for the Wii/PS2/PSP version which probably no one plays or gives a **** about.  The PS360 version is the "real" one and it is not affected.

Just to remind people, EA names its yearly sports titles after the year that the season in question ends.  I believe that means that Madden NFL 10 covered the '09-'10 season.  That's how it works for NCAA Football, Tiger Woods, and (when it existed) NBA Live.  So at worst the games that are being pulled are two years old, not one year old.

[TJ Spyke]

2010 FIFA World Cup came out in late April of 2010, so EA is shutting it down after about 9 months. NCAA 10 and Madden 10 will be about 1 1/2 years.

[Arbok]

Just to remind people, EA names its yearly sports title after the year that the season in question ends.  I believe that means that Madden NFL 10 covered the '09-'10 season.  That's how it works for NCAA Football, Tiger Woods, and (when it existed) NBA Live.  So at worst the games that are being pulled are two years old, not one year old.

Correct. However, they released the 2010 games at the end of Summer. So less than two years.

The worst is 2010 FIFA World Cup, as Ian points out, as that game came out just 8 months ago. The world cup might be over, but the difference in time between that and FIFA Soccer 2011 is only 6 months... are they really expecting soccer fans to have bought both the 2011 and World Cub versions in the same year?


EDIT: TJ Spyke pointed that out... I'm too slow it seems

[Ian Sane]

Just to remind people, EA names its yearly sports titles after the year that the season in question ends.  I believe that means that Madden NFL 10 covered the '09-'10 season.  That's how it works for NCAA Football, Tiger Woods, and (when it existed) NBA Live.

The NFL is a tricky beast though with their season naming convention.  The NBA is currently on its 2010-11 season.  The season spans over both calendar years so that is the naming convention they use.  The upcoming MLB season will be the 2011 season since baseball season is contained entirely within one calendar year.  But the NFL is goofy because their season, including playoffs is just referred to by a single year.  We are in 2011 and the current NFL season is in its playoffs but it is referred to as the 2010 NFL season, not the 2010-11 season.  So I figured Madden 10 would cover the 2010 season but it in fact covers the 2009 season and the current Madden 11 covers the 2010 season, which in reality ends in 2011.
 
If I gave a **** about Madden I would know the difference but I honestly had no idea what the name of the current Madden game is.  It's just off my radar.

[UncleBob]

This is inevitable.  Online games require servers and no company is going to keep a server going forever.

bzzzt.  Wrong.  Who wants to play some DooM?

[MegaByte]

It's too bad that most console games don't allow LAN play... Conduit had it built-in to test multiplayer, but was disabled for retail, and I imagine many games are designed similarly.  There's no good reason that they couldn't.

[Chozo Ghost]

I see there are some 07, 08, and 09 games in there with the 2010 games. I don't object much with EA terminating sports games that are 3+ years old, but I think 2009 and 2010 games should have been left alone for another year or two. Another thing they should do is give the people who own the terminated games some sort of voucher so that they can get a discount on the purchase of the newer editions of these games. A $20 discount off a $60 game would be a good gesture on their part.

[KDR_11k]

Other Xbox 360 games don't have this problem, but EA insisted on using their own servers.

Chromehounds says hello.

[SixthAngel]

This doesn't seem like some company clearing out the dead wood and closing the servers that are no longer being used.  It seems more like EA is eagerly anticipating the excuse to shut down these servers to get you to buy a new game.  Publishers want the remote off switch.  They don't want you to find one game and play the **** out of it for years and years.  If you are content with what you have you are less likely to continue to buy new games.  The ideal solution is to disable old games.  Now they can't really fully do that (yet) but this is pretty close to it.  They are taking something that had to happen at some point - shutting down old servers - and using it to their advantage.

Bingo.  They don't want people playing old games. I predict that this will get far, far worse sooner rather than later.

Remember when DLC just started and people were freaking out about Halo 2 map packs on Xbox (I waited for them to be free) and horse armor at the beginning of this gen?  Now that stuff is everywhere, on day one, on the actual disc, and sometime programmed into the original game to be a quest you are told about but can't play unless you buy.  People defend this too.

This is going to creep up the same way.  The servers will get cancelled a little earlier each time to save a buck and to see how far the companies can go.  Eventually it will essentially reach the point where the servers are basically closed when the sequel is released.  People will defend it to.  I can see it now. "Almost nobody plays last year's games anyway."  "This will make this game much better because the community will get bigger right away when the old servers close." "Those things cost too much money, we're lucky they give us these servers."  As ridiculous as those excuses are you know people will eat it up.

[Morari]

This is inevitable.  Online games require servers and no company is going to keep a server going forever.

bzzzt.  Wrong.  Who wants to play some DooM?

Eh. Id Software isn't the ones running those Doom servers though. Actually, nobody even really plays Doom proper anymore. They're all source ports, running on private server.

[UncleBob]

Eh. Id Software isn't the ones running those Doom servers though. Actually, nobody even really plays Doom proper anymore. They're all source ports, running on private server.

There's the catch - iD was never running DooM servers - it was all LAN/IP matches.  Meaning no third-party servers were necessary and my high school friends and I can boot up and play DooM online today just the same as we could ~15 years ago.

[KDR_11k]

I'm not convinced MS even runs servers for third party games, they take the money but it looks to me like third parties have to run the matchmaking servers themselves.