EA to remove online servers for 49 games

by Justin McElroy on Aug 3rd 2007 11:45AM

Expect EA's wrists to be pretty sore on Sept. 1 from all the plugs they'll have to pull. Forty-two of their titles on systems ranging from the PSP to the Xbox 360 will have online support discontinued next month, with another 7 casualties to follow on Nov. 1. The majority are sports titles like 2006's Madden, FIFA, NASCAR and NBA Live, but there are a few oddballs like Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects and Burnout Revenge (PS2 and Xbox), which is in the November group.

We understand that it probably costs a chunk of change to keep all of those servers running, and that's probably the primary motivation for the move ... but we bet EA wouldn't mind if the cancellation convinced you run out and get the latest iteration of their games. The full list is after the jump, are any of your favorites on there?

September 1, 2007 Online Service Shutdown

Arena Football for PlayStation 2
Arena Football for Xbox
FIFA Soccer 06 for Xbox 360
FIFA Soccer 06 for PC
FIFA06 for PC
FIFA Soccer 06 for PlayStation 2
FIFA Soccer 06 for PlayStation Portable
FIFA Soccer 06 for Xbox
FIFA World Cup 2006 for PC
FIFA World Cup 2006 for PlayStation 2
FIFA World Cup 2006 for PlayStation Portable
FIFA World Cup 2006 for Xbox
Fight Night Round 3 for PlayStation Portable
Fight Night Round 3 for Xbox
Madden NFL 06 for Xbox 360
Madden NFL 06 for PC
Madden NFL 06 for PlayStation 2
Madden NFL 06 for PlayStation Portable
Madden NFL 06 for Xbox
Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects for PlayStation 2
Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects for Xbox
MVP 07 NCAA Baseball for PlayStation 2
MVP 07 NCAA Baseball for Xbox
NASCAR 06 Total Team Control for PlayStation 2
NASCAR 06 Total Team Control for Xbox
NBA Live 06 for Xbox 360
NBA Live 06 for PC
NBA Live 06 for PlayStation 2
NBA Live 06 for PlayStation Portable
NCAA Football 2005 for Xbox
NCAA Football 2006 for PlayStation 2
NCAA Football 2006 for Xbox
NCAA March Madness 06 for PlayStation 2
NCAA March Madness 06 for Xbox
NFL Head Coach for PC
NFL Head Coach for Xbox
NFL Head Coach for PlayStation 2
NHL 06 for PC
NHL 06 for PlayStation 2
NHL 06 for Xbox
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 for Xbox 360
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 for Xbox

November 1, 2007 Online Service Shutdown

Burnout Revenge for Xbox
Burnout Revenge for PlayStation 2
Need for Speed Underground for PlayStation 2
Need for Speed Underground 2 for PC
Need for Speed Underground 2 for PlayStation 2
Need for Speed Most Wanted for PlayStation Portable
Need for Speed Most Wanted for Xbox

Source

Tags: EA, Electronic-Arts, online, PC, PS2, PSP, servers, Xbox, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (73)

I haven't played any of these games.

yes but isn't plausible that the issue at hand is that they are setting a nasty/questionable standard without our/gamers/consumers input?

I don't think this is the first time EA's unilaterally shut down servers

this is yet another ploy to enable EA to force gameplayers to buy the EXACT same game year after year with updated rosters. allpro might be the way to go. plus, doesn't it say somewhere on the box that these games are online enabled? ... and now they're not?!?

Can't they just make all the games run off the same servers, kind of like what Blizzard does with battle.net?

Or am I completely clueless about how this works?

...

Probably both.

Battle.net has 5 games on it that I can think of. WoW has its own dedicated set of servers separate from Battle.net. You can probably already see a big difference.

I doubt there's enough bandwidth on EA's servers to support ALL those games. And the cost of the bandwidth to allow that would be enormous and a huge waste of money if it mostly goes unused.

Okay, so how about servers dedicated to each franchise? Like all Madden games (regardless of year) run off of one set of servers. In theory, the server load should naturally stay somewhat consistant, as people upgrade to newer games they stop playing the older games, maintaining the same amount of total traffic.

But I admit I don't know much about this stuff, so maybe there's more technical issues at hand...

To continue to play, you must pay.

It does seem a little early to nix some '07 games

http://www.gamernewz.net

Meh, it's all sports and racing games.

I hope EA takes it to heart when I say right now that I will NEVER purchase another one of their sports games.

I'd love to be able to say this as well however I burnout

EA doesn't have a heart !!!!!!!!!!!

I thought Xbox games never went offline because Microsoft hosted the servers and that's why they charge $50 a month.

One of EA's stipulations for creating Xbox Live games was that they use their own servers and not Microsoft's. Now we see why. . .

Ugh I meant $50 a year. sorry, it's friday.

Yeah, I remember hearing Burnout 3 would be online and crying when EA bought Critereon (SP). It took a full week to play anyone online because after going through MS servers, you also go to EA's BS system so they can send you e-mails and advertising and data mine your info and sell it off. Burnout is one of the few EA games I buy. It's funny because in the genesis days I loved them. Not anymore, and especially not with this move. I didn't buy the 360 version of Burnout 4 because I had the xbox version. It looks like they want you to buy the new version if you wish to play online, and because they f#$%ed with MS's system, you can't play your old games anymore. :(

Expect plenty of future titles to rely on a third-party online service such as Gamespy.

The Command & Conquer franchise is probably the best example I can provide - Westwood On-Line was definitely replaced by a community-run service named XWIS and all new C&C games rely on Gamespy (or Xbox Live if you play them on Xbox 360).

Oh wait - I guess I have no idea how things work for Xbox games then.

Yeah, and XWIS is terrible as well. It's run by the most annoying people you can come across.

If for some reason THEIR servers glitch out and stop you logging in because of your CD's serial code, then they really don't care. They take action to shut you up.

They delete the thread and sweep it under the rug. Then they ban you from all XWIS games.

Believe me it's just as bad as it sounds. They are terrible people who've become very arrogant due to the "power" they now have. The community is trying to find an unofficial alternative.

Yeah, I'm aware - I worked on one of the XWIS alternatives before it was shut down because one of its main coders quit. :\

Sore wrists perhaps but not from pulling plugs, more from fisting their customers.

Brutal! So we can only expect about a 1 - 2 year span of online game support from EA? This justifies my disdain for them!

some of those arn't even 1 year old. I never intend on buying an EA game anyway, illegal download yes, but not buy because of stuff like this. Why the can't make the servers clientside or soemthing like that (PDZ, Halo 2 ect) that way they save more and people dont have to buy the latest game each year to play online.

But screw EA they suck.

meh i barely play madden online anyways, and EA servers sucked because mostly everybody else had horrible connections.

I'm not affected by this so I don't care.

Who the hell would be affected anyway? So why is it that bad...

people that enjoy video games are affected

Not that the Nascar game ever really worked online, Remember this gamers when you want that new Medal of Honor game, they will just drop the servers when a new edition comes out! This announcement has changed my mind I won't be purchasing Nascar08, where can I sign the petition to boycott EA..you think overworking/underpaying their employees would allow them to keep those servers up?!

What the fuck? I hope that Burnout Revenge is only for the XBox version and not the 360 version. Achievements essentially become impossible if fucking stupid-ass EA pulls the plug

That's a very good point. I didn't think of that.

EA should remove those 49 games as well.

thats BS. Can you imagine someone going to buy Burnout Revenge (good title) in november, it says "Xbox Live" on the cover, but when you fire it up, nothing.

Thats Crap...EA suxx.

Cant wait for skate. go EA. i love you.

Thats what's going to make Unreal Tournament 3 on PS3 great, the fact that you can have a dedicated Server on a PC/Linux. noone can stop you from hosting a server on it.

I don't know if the same holds true for Xbox 360 but if it does thats great too.

Well I'm probably not going to buy any more EA games from now on after Battlefield 2142.

I'm not sure what their motivation was (an attempt to stop piracy, control users or just the ability to ram more adverts down your throat), but the multiplayer 'options' are pathetic. You are forced to play the game only on their servers (or rented) and cannot host your own closed games to just friends or your clan.

This is bad enough, but when EA decides it's time to abandon their online functionality it will essentially make the entire game useless. Sure it may not happen, or not for awhile (like until EA want to force people to buy Battlefield 2342) but it is still a bad sign.

Imagine if Quake 3 had been made by EA & it was locked to their servers, we'd not see all the games still going 7 years on that we do today.

The lesson learned, never get into playing any EA game online. Since Earth and Beyond I haven't taken the plunge again.

I played 800 online games of Tiger Woods 06 on the Xbox 360, now they are making it so I can't get achievements because it costs money to use a server? Last I checked, it doesn't cost as much if the server isn't get used. Screw you EA. You rip people off yearly, the least you could do is keep the servers going.

This is bs, they basically force people who play football games to buy the next year's game. Why should I have to pay 50 a year for xbox live and 60 a year for madden. This makes no sense. I wouldnt mind if they added new features to madden but since 06 when they signed that contract with the NFL, they havent added anything noteworthy to the game. I say this sucks.

They probably would have knocked down halo 2's server a year ago if they owned the game, cuz they're evil like that, thats why I try to avoid they're games, if everyone did that, maybe they would stop appending numbers to the same game, and keep they're servers up longer, eh?

Pretty crappy. Lot of 06 games. Why don't they just reconfig some servers to handle more than one game. It's not like the user amounts are the same on those games. It's not that much to keep a server up and running for a game that doesn't see any changes or increased loads.

More specifically, it's not like the games have been changed that much, if at all.

Ouch. I really wonder what EA is thinking at this stage of the game. I read the statement on their website and my only problem is that they are not giving their customers any options.

I'd hope most of us know that servers cost money, not just to build, but also just to run and keep maintained. It's part of the reason why Micrsoft charges for a Gold Membership. I can understand why EA needs to pull these; their earnings were horrible and they are already in the standard cost-cutting phase that comes after.

However, why couldn't they provide a service similar to Live for their own games. Perhaps these servers are not being used a whole lot, but it seems like a complete throwaway of potential revenue. Plus, it sends a bad message to the consumer. EA has enough problems being the 800-pound development gorilla. They're arrogance reminds me of Sony. Bad, bad move IMO.

with every other game tho (non ea) you the user, hosts the games on xbl and become the server. This means that a game only needs ONE server from microsoft. and thats the server which shows the list of games currently being hosted. I suppose thats where most of our $50 a year goes. This way they can support games forever since it would only be 1 server used to support multiple games. EA however, needs a several servers per game to be able to host the matches. This really blows because they go and pull support like this. Also, why should we need a gold membership to play EA games when they use their own servers and pull this crap?

Although this list does not effect me, there are still some battlefield MC achievments i am going for online. What about when that game get pulled? It will essentially be a pointless disc since the game is practically pure multiplayer. Iy sucks cause now PGA 06 becomes the first xbox 360 game where achievements within the game become unatianable (other then being due to a glitch). I think EA should at least be forced to patch in all online achievmenets for pulled games so they automatically are givin to new players since its now impossible to achieve them.

New games come out, so the old games get the plug!

Get the new game versions bitches!

What happens when a game like Army of Two goes offline?

Not really following the title, but its going to depend fairly heavily on online co-op, no?

It's ok you guys, we're only being forced to buy the same game again, only with slightly improved graphics and a new year on the cover.

Can anyone say CLASS ACTION????? seriously you buy their game which is fully functional and then some time passes and they pull the plug to online play, which means the game is no longer fully functional. I'm done buying EA games, they can burn in hell.

I think you might be right. This sounds a lot like "bait and switch."

Fuck EA

This is no surprise. They do it constantly. At least in the PC world we have recourse. For instance, when they pulled C&C Renegade, XWIS was able to host the servers.

Business is business and it sucks but the vast majority of people who bought and played these games online have already or will move to the 07 versions.

EA = GARBAGE!

;_; nooo... not Marvel Nemesis! I enjoyed sitting in the lobby by myself, contemplating a reason to live...

*blam*

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EA to remove online servers for 49 games

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