EA pulls online support for some Xbox 360 & PS3 titles - several people affected

[Queasy]

EA has annonced that it will shut down the online multiplayer servers for several of its titles across the months of March and April. Citing the fact that the player populations for these servers comprise a mere 0.3% of the total player populations on EA servers, EA is shutting down the servers for even games barely a year old to concentrate on the titles serving the other 97.3% of its server population. Unsurprisingly, two of the titles listed are from the recently closed Pandemic Studios.

Four of the titles listed are part of Microsoft shutting down Xbox Live for the Original Xbox.

Here is the full list of games to be shut down along with the systems and dates.

March 16, 2010

• Def Jam (PS3, Xbox 360)
• Godfather (PS3, Xbox 360)
• Lord of the Rings: Conquest for (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
• Mercenaries 2: World in Flames(PC)
• Need for Speed: Carbon (PSP)
• Need for Speed: ProStreet (PSP)
• The Simpsons (PS3, Xbox 360)

April 15, 2010

• Burnout 3: Takedown (PS2)
• Army of Two (PS3 - Asia Only)
• Battlefield 2: Modern Combat (Xbox)
• Burnout 3: Takedown (Xbox)
• Madden NFL 09 (Xbox)

 

[Kabob]

I don't own any of them but it's sorta shady. I do own LotR: Battle for Middle Earth 2 but I've never tried playing it online.

 

[Lotheron]

I don't own any of them but it's sorta shady. I do own LotR: Battle for Middle Earth 2 but I've never tried playing it online.

Well they can always re purpose the servers for something more popular, but this is why I don't like anything "hosted" by a company as the only option. It used to be even when the official servers were down you could rely on privately hosted servers, but that's not even an option anymore in many cases (I'm speaking from a PC perspective as well).

 

[JoPh]

this is why xbl/psn should host all the servers. then we wouldnt have issues like this.

ea needs to rethink its stance.

 

[Kromis]

I don't own any of them but it's sorta shady. I do own LotR: Battle for Middle Earth 2 but I've never tried playing it online.

Last time I went online with it, there were ZERO people on. It's completely dead.

 

[bdubyah]

I see no harm in that. If no one is playing them anymore, why keep the servers when you have other games that could use them?

 

[Kur]

I see no harm in that. If no one is playing them anymore, why keep the servers when you have other games that could use them?

False advertisement now, the back of the cases promise online multi-player, they no longer do.

How would you feel that after you bought a game, half of the experience is now gone?

 

[I4AT]

There's actually a disclaimer on all these games that says EA may terminate online functionality with 30 days notice, so it's not false advertisement. Just kind of fucked up that they're pulling the plug on so many games that have only been out for a year. They should at least patch them for P2P support or something.

 

[arkcom]

If only a few people play, it's not really using any resources. Why bother taking them down?

 

[Rifter]

If only a few people play, it's not really using any resources. Why bother taking them down?

NAIL ON THE HEAD!!!!

If there are few players then the draw on the system is so small it doesnt matter, you could host 1,000 game servers on the same system as long as the total players connected doesnt exceed the system resources available, there is no reason for this.

This is why i dont buy multiplayer EA games anymore.

 

[Tsavo]

Lord of the Rings: Conquest is easily the worst game I have ever played.

By miles.

EA should be shut down for allowing that steaming pile of kangaroo shit to be released.

 

[erwos]

If only a few people play, it's not really using any resources. Why bother taking them down?

That's a somewhat naive way of looking at things. It still requires maintenance and security upgrades, and if it's not running in a virtualized environment, it's taking up rack space and sucking down power. I'm not saying EA is in the right here (they should just use the XBL infrastructure and be done with it), but there's certainly reason on their end to end support for games that no one plays.

 

[Wardawg1001]

Lord of the Rings: Conquest is easily the worst game I have ever played.

By miles.

EA should be shut down for allowing that steaming pile of kangaroo shit to be released.

Agreed.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Hmm...guess they'll cut off online support for Madden 10 about a day after Madden 11 is released.

 

[Razgriz]

stay classy EA!

 

[Craig234]

I don't like shutting down servers. It seems cheap to keep them going.

Online gmaes aren't books you can read, moviews you can watch, you need the servers for online.

IMO, they should budget for long-time servers to release online games.

This goes for MMO's too. A lot of Asheron's Call 2 players and others had a year+ of time put in levelling lost when the game shut down.

 

[BD2003]

That's a somewhat naive way of looking at things. It still requires maintenance and security upgrades, and if it's not running in a virtualized environment, it's taking up rack space and sucking down power. I'm not saying EA is in the right here (they should just use the XBL infrastructure and be done with it), but there's certainly reason on their end to end support for games that no one plays.

Then maybe they should run it in a virtualized environment? The amount of server space and processing requirements for games that no one plays has to be absolutely trivial.

 

[erwos]

Then maybe they should run it in a virtualized environment? The amount of server space and processing requirements for games that no one plays has to be absolutely trivial.

Like I said, even if they're still virtual machines, someone's gotta keep them updated and going. If a security patch breaks the server software (and it happens!), dev has to go and fix it anyways...