EA has sadly announced that more than 50 games are going to have their multiplayer servers closed at the end of June. These will include Crysis 2, Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142.
This is obviously because of the GameSpy closure, which is set to go fully offline at the end of this month. Many, many games used GameSpy and their servers for years, and the complete list of games affected by their closure is very long indeed.
EA had originally said that they were looking into alternative hosting solutions so that the Battlefield series would be unaffected, but it looks like their efforts weren’t successful.
EA made an official announcement saying,
“Since GameSpy’s announcement, our teams have been working to evaluate options to keep services up and running. Unfortunately, due to technical challenges and concerns about the player experience, we do not have a solution at this time. Online services for EA games on the GameSpy platform will be closed down at the end of June.
We know some of these games are still fan favorites, including Battlefield 2, Battlefield 1942, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and Command & Conquer games. 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.”
However, there was actually another message posted which listed slightly more practical reasons…
“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. We would rather our hard-working engineering and IT staff focus on keeping a positive experience for the other 99 per cent 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.”
You can find the full list of EA games affected below, which will all go offline on June 30th.
- 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 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 3 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 Rockband for the Wii
- Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 for Nintendo DS
