Post Comment - Blue's News

EA Server Shutdowns

[Dec 31, 2012, 12:13 pm ET] - Share - Viewing Comments

EA has updated its list of Service Updates, revealing multiplayer servers that are hitting end-of-life (thanks Polygon). They say such decisions are never easy, explaining: "We would rather our hard-working engineering and IT staff focus on keeping a positive experience for the other 99% of customers playing our more popular games. We hope you have gotten many hours of enjoyment out of the games and we appreciate your ongoing patronage." They also announce a change for their free-to-play games, saying they will all begin using the same virtual currency called "Play4Free Funds," a name which may strike users as ironic when they pay for them. There are only a few PC titles impacted: The Sims 2 for PC/MAC and TheSims2.com will shut down on January 14, FIFA Soccer 11 for PC and consoles will conclude on January 11, and FIFA Manager 11 for PC ends on January 3.

Post Comment
Enter the details of the comment you'd like to post in the boxes below and click the button at the bottom of the form.

49.

Re: More Big Picture Details

Dec 31, 2012, 21:20

Panickd

Dades wrote on Dec 31, 2012, 18:45: Panickd wrote on Dec 31, 2012, 18:16: That's a bit over dramatic. If Sim City (or any game for that matter) ends up insanely popular and EA pulls the plug someone will find a way to hack together some sort of server emulator that will allow people to keep playing until their eyeballs bleed. People can't just throw together a server emulator lickity split, companies like EA are making it more and more difficult by putting things like AI on the server. Their whole reason for doing this sort of stuff is lack of alternatives, they want you behind their paywall for life, buying upgrades, DLC and whatever else they can dream up. Maybe it's the world we live in but people don't need to like it. They are doing this intentionally, not a single person has offered an explanation of why they can't just run a glorified authentication server and use P2P if it's so cost ineffective for them to run multiplayer servers. - *DADES* - This is a signature of my name, enjoy! I never said it could be done "lickity split", only that it could be done and if a game is popular enough it's inevitable that it will be done. And I don't doubt that they're doing this kind of thing deliberately, it's a business model that, despite the hemming and hawing here, seems to be working for them. People don't like day one DLC either. You see nothing but bitching over it everywhere you go online and yet publishers keep putting it out there. Why? Simple: people are buying it in pretty striking numbers. If they weren't it would be a fading memory. People snap up XBox 360 games like tic tacs, but Microsoft isn't going to support Live play on the 360 indefinitely. At some point it will be EOL'd just like it was for the original XBox. That doesn't keep people from buying. People pissed and moaned over Diablo III's always online requirement and what happened? It was one of the best selling PC games ever. If you don't like the business practices of a company don't spend your money on their products. Just don't fool yourself into thinking it's going to change anything. Or you can bitch loudly and then buy their crap anyway, like most people do. Dev wrote on Dec 31, 2012, 20:21: Not sure which game you are referring to, but you should know by now that ALL ea games are subject to having online/multiplayer being shut down. On another note, if a game has a smaller following, its unlikely to get enough interest for someone to make any sort of server emulation for it. Not "all" EA games are subject to these policies. The older EA games with community run servers are still out there and still being played by lots of people. And it's true that smaller games probably won't get any love from the cracking/emulation community. It's a price that you pay when you give most of the control to the guy with his hand in your wallet. But you can bet even money that popular games will see the hackers come out of the woodwork the way they did for the popular MMOs back before they all went "free" to play.

Subject

Comment [quote="Panickd"Dec 31, 2012, 21:20][quote="Dades"Dec 31, 2012, 18:45][quote="Panickd"Dec 31, 2012, 18:16] That's a bit over dramatic. If Sim City (or any game for that matter) ends up insanely popular and EA pulls the plug someone will find a way to hack together some sort of server emulator that will allow people to keep playing until their eyeballs bleed. [/quote] People can't just throw together a server emulator lickity split, companies like EA are making it more and more difficult by putting things like AI on the server. Their whole reason for doing this sort of stuff is lack of alternatives, they want you behind their paywall for life, buying upgrades, DLC and whatever else they can dream up. Maybe it's the world we live in but people don't need to like it. They are doing this intentionally, not a single person has offered an explanation of why they can't just run a glorified authentication server and use P2P if it's so cost ineffective for them to run multiplayer servers. - b[i[u[DADES]u]i]b - This is a signature of my name, enjoy! [/quote] I never said it could be done "lickity split", only that it could be done and if a game is popular enough it's inevitable that it will be done. And I don't doubt that they're doing this kind of thing deliberately, it's a business model that, despite the hemming and hawing here, seems to be working for them. People don't like day one DLC either. You see nothing but bitching over it everywhere you go online and yet publishers keep putting it out there. Why? Simple: people are buying it in pretty striking numbers. If they weren't it would be a fading memory. People snap up XBox 360 games like tic tacs, but Microsoft isn't going to support Live play on the 360 indefinitely. At some point it will be EOL'd just like it was for the original XBox. That doesn't keep people from buying. People pissed and moaned over Diablo III's always online requirement and what happened? It was one of the best selling PC games ever. If you don't like the business practices of a company don't spend your money on their products. Just don't fool yourself into thinking it's going to change anything. Or you can bitch loudly and then buy their crap anyway, like most people do. [quote="Dev"Dec 31, 2012, 20:21]Not sure which game you are referring to, but you should know by now that ALL ea games are subject to having online/multiplayer being shut down. On another note, if a game has a smaller following, its unlikely to get enough interest for someone to make any sort of server emulation for it. [/quote] Not "all" EA games are subject to these policies. The older EA games with community run servers are still out there and still being played by lots of people. And it's true that smaller games probably won't get any love from the cracking/emulation community. It's a price that you pay when you give most of the control to the guy with his hand in your wallet. But you can bet even money that popular games will see the hackers come out of the woodwork the way they did for the popular MMOs back before they all went "free" to play. [/quote]

;) :( :o %) :) :| ;P X| :D More

If you have a signature set up, it will be automatically appended to your comment.
If you don't already have a Blue's News user account, you can sign up here.
Forgotten your password? Click here.

Email me when this topic is updated.

Special Codes

b[bold text]b
i[italic text]i
u[underline text]u
-[~~strikethrough text~~]-
c[code text]c
+[bullet point]+
q[quote text (indented)]q
[quote="Author"]quote text (indented)[/quote]
[url=Link]text[/url]
r{red text}r
g{green text}g
b{blue text}b
m{maroon text}m
s{secret text (shows in the background colour)}s

Forum Rules

Disagree all you want but attacks of a personal nature will not be tolerated.
Ethnic slurs and homophobic language will not be tolerated.
Do not post spam, links to warez sites, or instructions on how to obtain pirated software.
Abusing the forums in any manner that could be construed as 'griefing' will not be tolerated.