A month after the announcement about Glu’s GameSpy multiplayer servers shutting down on May 31, EA’s blog post has confirmed that on June 30, 50 older games’ online support will be discontinued, including Crysis 2 and Battlefield 2 for the PC, and numerous FIFA titles.
A third-party technology item, Gamespy was used by publishers and developers to host online services, and was acquired by Glu from IGN in 2012. Alongside EA, other developers like Ubisoft, Gearbox, Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, Firaxis and several more, used this service.
“The decisions to retire older EA games are never easy,” EA stated on its website. “The development teams and operational staff pour their hearts into these games almost as much as the customers playing them and it is hard to see one retired. But as games get replaced with newer titles, the number of players still enjoying the older games dwindles to a level — typically fewer than 1% 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.”
EA’s blog post also read that they’re “still investigating” solutions to keep a select few titles online, despite “significant technical hurdles.”
“We know some of these games are still fan favorites, including Battlefield 2, Battlefield 1942, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and Command & Conquer games,” reads the post. “We are still investigating community-supported options to preserve online functionality for these titles, such as multiplayer. Significant technical hurdles remain, and at this time we don’t have anything to announce.”
The full list of affected games can be found below.
- Battlefield 1942 for PC and Mac (including The Road to Rome and Secret Weapons of WW2 expansions)
- Battlefield 2 for PC (including Special Forces expansion)
- Battlefield 2: Modern Combat for PlayStation 2
- Battlefield 2142 for PC and Mac (including Northern Strike expansion)
- Battlefield Vietnam for PC
- Bejeweled (r) 2 for the Wii
- Bulletstorm for PlayStation 3
- Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars for PC and Mac (including Kane’s Wrath expansion)
- Command & Conquer: Generals for PC and Mac (including Zero Hour expansion)
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 for PC and Mac
- Crysis 2 for PC
- Crysis for PC
- Crysis Wars for PC
- Dracula – Undead Awakening for the Wii
- Dragon Sakura for Nintendo DS
- EA Sports 06 for PC
- F1 2002 for PC
- FIFA Soccer 08 (KOR) for the Wii
- FIFA Soccer 08 for Nintendo DS
- FIFA Soccer 09 for Nintendo DS
- FIFA Soccer 10 for Nintendo DS
- FIFA Street 3 for Nintendo DS
- Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers for PlayStation 2
- Global Operations for PC
- GREEN DAY: ROCK BAND for the Wii
- James Bond: Nightfire for PC
- Madden NFL 08 for Nintendo DS
- Madden NFL 09 for Nintendo DS
- Master of Orion III for PC
- Medal of Honor: Allied Assault for PC and Mac (including Breakthrough and Spearhead expansions)
- MySims Party for Wii
- MySims Racing for Nintendo DS
- MySims SkyHeroes for the Wii and DS
- NASCAR Sim Racing for PC
- NASCAR Thunder 2003 for PC
- NASCAR Thunder 2004 for PC
- Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 for PC
- Need for Speed: ProStreet for Nintendo DS
- Need for Speed: Undercover for Nintendo DS
- Neverwinter Nights 2 for PC and Mac
- Neverwinter Nights for PC, Mac and Linux (including Hordes of the Underdark and Shadows of Undrentide expansions)
- SimCity Creator for Wii
- Skate It for Nintendo DS
- Sneezies for the Wii
- Spore Creatures for Nintendo DS
- Spore Hero Arena for Nintendo DS
- Star Wars: Battlefront for PC and PlayStation 2
- Star Wars: Battlefront II for PC and PlayStation 2
- THE BEATLES: ROCK BAND for the Wii
- Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 for Nintendo DS
