EA Shutting Down Video Game Servers Prematurely 341
Spacezilla writes "EA is dropping the bomb on a number of their video game servers, shutting down the online fun for many of their Xbox 360, PC and PlayStation 3 games. Not only is the inclusion of PS3 and Xbox 360 titles odd, the date the games were released is even more surprising. Yes, Madden 07 and 08 are included in the shutdown... but Madden 09 on all consoles as well?"
"but please feel free to buy our '10 versions!" (Score:5, Insightful)
NASCAR 09 (Score:1, Insightful)
This is one of the few where I can actually understand their decision. I mean, what kind of Europeans are driving in circles playing NASCAR 09? The only people I can think of who'd care are redneck military stationed overseas.
Re:I recognize this strategy (Score:3, Insightful)
and here is the real issue.
If it is "a lot" then they risk upsetting a lot of customers, bad pr, etc.
if it is not "a lot" then you'd have to wonder what is the rush. If its a tiny amount, amalgamate, etc.
Re:Direct multiplayer? (Score:4, Insightful)
From what I understand, I thought each of these games on consoles, that one of the players will be the 'server' - and that the role of the EA server is matchmaking etc, but clarification would be cool.
I'm pretty certain that in all cases none of the consoles involved is acting as a server. If one was than that player could have a significant advantage due to relative latency issues. Also having a console act as a server means having to deal with NAT, firewalls and other routing/network issues - the only guaranteed way for all the consoles to see the server being if the server is public (i.e. not on a console on someone's home ISP connection) or for a public server to act as a relay for those that can't connect directly.
No surprise there (Score:5, Insightful)
This why people shouldn't buy their games. There is no need for EA to be the middle man in online gaming but they do it purely to have control. They don't need you playing Madden 08 year after year. They need you to buy every version. Quite frankly I'm surprised they don't shut the servers down for the previous version the day the new version is released. It probably will get to that point.
Yep, dedicated servers are a great solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Our company has provided commercial game server management services for almost 10 years for a large ISP client in Australia. We have watched games rise and fall over this entire time. And the games with dedicated server software - games like Quake, which came out in 1996 - are still just as playable today as they were back then (often more so thanks to enhanced community-created features).
There are a few exceptions to that - AvP2 ran into problems recently when they shut down the master server/s. But a community project has worked around this.
We recently published a guide - the Mammoth Dedicated Server Guide [mammothmedia.com.au] - for game developers and publishers trying to explain to them why they should release dedicated server software (inspired in no small part by Modern Warfare 2's lack of dedicated server). We're hoping to make more people aware of it, and more importantly, more gamers aware of the issues surrounding games without dedicated servers (such as this story!!!!), so that when they're choosing what games to spend money on, they can show more discrimination.
So the rule is (Score:2, Insightful)
Or called Facebreaker
Re:I know this is EA and not Blizzard, (Score:5, Insightful)
Pee on code, we don't want the code, we want the specs. Give us the specifications of how the client and server communicate and we'll do the rest... when it's worth it. Besides, the code is theirs, but it's reasonable for the specs to be ours (perhaps charging a reasonable cost for distribution.)
Re: Direct multiplayer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Good points, and I guess that is why other game vendors (Valve) offer dedicated servers for download. You can install those on some rented server at an ISP which has a much better internet connection than at your home. This way, the game vendor has to support only the matchmaking service which is presumably much cheaper to run - Valve still supports Half-Life 1 under Steam which is 10 years old. The obvious downside is that you pay for the game server. But I still like this model better than having my games killed after a year.
EA could do this too of course.
Re:Why the need to shut down anything (Score:3, Insightful)
Money.
Money, Money, and Money. (Score:5, Insightful)
The economy blows, so to the average guy, is it really worth $50 to upgrade to 10 or is 09 good enough as it is?
It just boils down to money. Plain and simple. Not even the cost of running the servers, but forcing everyone that thought Madden 09 was just fine for their needs to go out and pickup Madden 10.
Re:I know this is EA and not Blizzard, (Score:3, Insightful)
Considering I know insiders, and I remember the time period BNET-D came out I will say the battle.net servers absolutely sucked at that time. StarCraft lagged and crashed out all the time, and when Diablo 2 came out both became worse (I didn't do much Diablo 1 online, only LAN)
Back then, I was a Novell guy anyways, and we already had IPX running everywhere I went, so LAN wasn't bad, but that didn't take care of things when you didn't have your buddies over. BNET-D was a fix to a problem that existed.
Nobody had a problem playing pirated version anyways, there was a universal key that was all 1's and 0's that all of us had memorized back then, when we played on the LAN we used that key anyways that way we could multiple "severs" and if we wanted to swap which one we played on we didn't have to reinstall the spawn.
Spawns were a good idea BTW - you could argue the GBA, DS and PSP picked up on this idea when the PC world abandoned it.
Intellectual property rights (Score:1, Insightful)
If it is -so- old and useless that they will deprive the users of the functionality they PURCHASED, how is it they can still retain IP rights which prevent people from standing up their own Madden 07 and 08 servers? This needs to go to court. They cannot have it both ways. "It's too valueable for us to allow the customers who purchased the game, the rights to the IP, but it is so worthless that we aren't going to provide the purchased functionality." Nice arguement.
Blizzard didn't cooperate (Score:5, Insightful)
BNET-D started because several individuals had banned CD-Keys or wished to play with pirated versions of Blizzards games.
As I understand it, the bnetd developers contacted Blizzard to ask how to verify CD keys, and when Blizzard refused to cooperate, the bnetd developers continued without the feature.
Re:Some thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
(soapbox alert) So why even play these games at all? What do you get after an hour of playing video games, besides a headache and high blood pressure?
Troll.
Why not go play an instrument, or play sports for real, or do something to improve yourself or the rest of the human race?
I have a game console and a mountain bike. My friend the football coach plays Madden. Grow up already.
Watch out, MW2 lovers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Some weeks ago, there were some heated discussions here and elsewhere about COD4 Modern Warfare 2 and the decision NOT to include the capability to create dedicated servers for online play. There was a great deal of anger from some COD4 fans who had found that the LAN play was the most exciting part of the COD4 experience.
The reaction from the MW2 fanboy community was "What could possibly go wrong?".
Well, here's your answer.
Killing the second hand market (Score:5, Insightful)
This is probably just a ploy to kill off the second hand and discounted games market. Only people who pay full price for the latest update get to play online.
Re:Do without football (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Money, Money, and Money. (Score:5, Insightful)
I was going to mod you and the previous poster higher but I HAD to respond.
This PISSES me off. I've owned every Madden since 06 on the Xbox360 and a few on the GameCube.
Year after year the manuals have been reduced to 4 page leaflets. My 04 Madden on the Gamecube came with a superb manual. It was excellent and showed they somewhat cared about making a polished game.
I can certainly understand the need to close say a 06 server, even an 07 and 08. But to close the 09? That's ridiculous.
You are correct it's all about money. I don't know the numbers but I guarentee Madden 10 sold less than 09. 09 was good, 10 less so. I despise EA and I will not buy another sports game from them. Sadly they have bought up other companies whose games I really enjoy. It just SICKENS me what they have done to this industry! The fact that there are no other football alternatives is pretty gross.
This is a direct message to EA I will never buy another sports game from you.
Re:The only people who have anything to whine abou (Score:5, Insightful)
If you buy their games you deserve nothing less.
No, you still deserve better. However, you should also have known better.
Where do you live? (Score:3, Insightful)
I never understood why people play soccer games anyways. Why people watch soccer is already mysterious enough to me, but remotely understandable; but why the hell would you play a game which imitates something you could easily do with a bunch of friends (or even strangers) somewhere outside, for cheap? I'm not a big soccer player, but I sure know that regardless of how bad I am, I'm gonna have more fun playing *actual* soccer than some strange video game copy of it.
Wow, where do you live? Terrific weather year-round, eh? And the days are always long enough that after you get home from work there's still plenty of daylight left for your soccer game! And all those strangers you pick up for your soccer games are really friendly and never care when you dork out and let the other team win.
Even forgetting the fact that it sometimes isn't (for most people) more fun to play soccer in the real than to play a computer game, I'd just guess that the answer to your question is "A lot of people are quite different than you, and by the time you become an adult this shouldn't surprise you in the least".
Re:Why the need to shut down anything (Score:3, Insightful)
"Money" as in "people shell out $60 for the 2010 version".
And they will. Make no mistake. Any backlash on this will be minimal. EA has been selling the annual series of these games for years now, and only guarantee server access for one year, after which you either multiplay locally, set up your own server somewhere, or shell out the bucks for the next version. They're just a couple of years behind in their server shutdown schedule. EA is also the only one licensed to do games with real names and logos in them, and people want their unreality to be real. So if EA players want to shove a bunch of pixels that vaguely resemble their favorite players and compete with total strangers doing so, they'll pony up $60.
There will be angst (shock) , and gnashing of teeth (anger), and the threat of a lawsuit or something (denial), followed by maybe some crying (acceptance), followed by the shuffling sound of millions of credit cards being pulled out of millions of wallets. This is the cycle of annual upgrade grief.
I never played football games, but I was into first person shooters for a while (Unreal, Call of Duty, etc). I rarely played online, we had LAN parties. But it got too expensive keeping up with the latest games, even just for 4 game lines ($60/year/game for 4 games was costing me $20 a month just to buy games), so I stopped.
EA would do well to charge a monthly fee for server access and guarantee access to 3-4 releases back. But they apparently do better just selling an annual version with one year (from release date) of access and baking the server costs into the retail price of the game.
Now (Score:3, Insightful)
Money. Now.
Organizations commonly become short-sighted. They become so worried about increasing profits this quarter that they really stop caring about the distant future.
The Daily Show interviewed a legislator in some state with budget shortfalls. Her plan was to sell the government buildings to a private company and then lease them back for twenty years. That would let them fill a $20 million gap in the year that the buildings were sold. When asked how the state would ever pay the rent in following years without a $20 million windfall, her response was: "We have to get through this year first. I'm just trying to balance the budget this year."
Killing all those servers will immediately lower administration and bandwidth costs. And it may very well give a kick to sales of the current versions. When the boss sees lower costs and higher sales he'll be happy. When sales slump again in six months they can blame piracy.
Re:Some thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
We should try and break the 18mo CEO cycle.
A good way to start would be to NOT give $100 Million to every failed CEO as you're kicking his ass out the door.
Re:2009 was last year, move with the times (Score:5, Insightful)
one more reason to avoid EA games.
One more reason to avoid any game that depends on its publisher's servers. If I want to play Quake online I still can, and that came out well over ten years ago.
Re:Box (Score:4, Insightful)
(AFAIK, the 1.24 patch for Warcraft 3, which was released last year, was a change of the API of its scripting engine to block security holes caused by malicious maps, not just small tweaks. Who else does that for six-year-old games?)
Not to rain on your Blizzard-worshiping parade, but I'm pretty sure that if they'd released any other games in that time besides WoW and were not still selling six-to-eleven year old games at 6-month-old game prices (WC3, SC, and Diablo 2 Battle Chests, still going for 39.99).
And people still buy them, so of course they have to keep them patched. There's no altruism or fan loyalty there. They've managed to keep sales channels for old games open to a degree that would make Nintendo blush.
Re:Do without football (Score:2, Insightful)
Last time I went around the neighborhood asking 30+ year old Dads to come out and play they all looked at me funny.
Re:Blizzard didn't cooperate (Score:1, Insightful)
No crap they didn't give them the ability to check to see if a CD key was valid. Talk about a great way to find out if a the CD Key you just generated would work on normal battle net. Sometimes I can't believe what people want from companies.
Re:The only people who have anything to whine abou (Score:2, Insightful)
No, it's just that it's sort of hard to miss their name on the box when it's right smack in the middle of the front cover [googlehosted.com].
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Do without football (Score:4, Insightful)
That same argument can be made about the vast majority of realistic video games.
FPS? Go join the military. Guitar Hero? Join a band. Fighting game? Go take MMA classes. Madden? Go play Football. Soccer game? Go outside and play soccer.
Naturally, if you give it more than the most superficial consideration - you'd be able to see that there is a world of difference between turning on a game and pressing 'play' and doing it in real life. You also make the incorrect assumption that everyone who enjoys video games is physically able to participate in the real-world physical version.
I can turn on FIFA 09 and play for 30 minutes after work. I'd be hard pressed to organize a game of soccer with 22 of my friends. I'd be even more hard pressed to play a full season of soccer with the World Cup as my goal.
First, the in-game players are designed to emulate the abilities of real world, *professional* players. 99.9999% of the population cannot play on that level. Second, there is dramatically different levels of risk associated with the two tasks. Playing soccer in real life is far more dangerous than on the video game. I broke my arm playing soccer, I've never done that playing a video game. Third, you've got logistic issues.....you need a place to play, you need goals, you need nets, you need gear, you should really have a ref. Those things aren't free. And if you want to have any sort of structure - with teams and scores - you'll need insurance.
I played on a local Rugby team around here for a season a few years after college. It was fun - but we were part of a league and the dues to cover the insurance, pay the ref, and hold a field were not cheap. And that's not addressing the costs of the uniform, the gear, nor the travel (nor the liquor afterwords, but that's a different story).
Bottom line is - you are talking about two things that are completely different. They aren't mutually exclusive. They are only superficially related. Not liking a type of video game is fine. Liking a real-world equivalent is fine. But advocating that the 'real world' version is a good replacement for the video game really misses the point of video games.
Re:Madden vs 2010 (Score:2, Insightful)
Thank god for dedicated servers and LAN play.
Oh wait.
Re:Blizzard didn't cooperate (Score:4, Insightful)
And.. what would Blizzard have gotten out that equation?
People with cracked keys wouldn't be playing online?
It isn't like their decision to allow for authentication hurt anybody else. Everybody else just doesn't authenticate the keys. It actually makes their software more functional.
Re:The only people who have anything to whine abou (Score:3, Insightful)
It does have limits, though, doesn't it?
What if you park your car in a secure area without bills on the dash? Some might argue that if you walked everywhere you went you could have avoided this crime, and therefore you reap what you sew.
The fact you can make choices does not obviate the ability of others to do so, ergo nor does it the responsibility.
Boiled all the way down, this mentality opens the door to arguments such as, "You should have known he was a rapist, and you deserved it because you dress like a slut."
Thus, the limits.
Re:2009 was last year, move with the times (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:2009 was last year, move with the times (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I, for one (Score:3, Insightful)
It's enforced obsolescence. If you can't play the game you bought last year, it means you need the one they released this year.
Simple marketing.
Re:Blizzard didn't cooperate (Score:3, Insightful)
If I asked you for the algorithm to crack your product you probably wouldn't hand it out either
Is it really "cracking" to use a web service that states whether there is a valid subscription associated with this CD key and PIN?
Re:Blizzard didn't cooperate (Score:2, Insightful)
Uhh.. do you realize what you just asked? bnetd is what enabled those banned users to play online and yet you expected Blizzard to block those users in a round-about way to lending out its key authentication to bnetd? Are you people insane? Seriously. Come on.
Re:Blizzard didn't cooperate (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no reason that in order to allow bnet to authenticate keys that Blizzard would need to give them the ability to create keys.
If bnet just wanted to collect valid keys - they can do that already. After all, they'll have tons of legit clients connecting to them all the time and they could just ask those clients for their keys unless Blizard thought to make the clients authenticate those requests.
The issue is that Blizard wants to cry "they're allowing piracy" and then when bnet says "ok, show us how not to" their only response amounts to "just shut down." Blizard does not have any legal right to control what 3rd-party servers their customers connect to, and they're using piracy as an excuse to eliminate competition.
Re:2009 was last year, move with the times (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Odd? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure why they find the PS3 shutdown odd, but the general understanding of the 360's online capability was that the multiplayer servers were part of the Xbox Live network and would last as long as Live does.