Electronic Arts has announced that it will shut down online servers for
another round of games seeing little user activity over the next few
weeks, including one that features the company's Online Pass initiative
aimed at curbing second-hand game sales. The move means you'll no longer
be able to use the online portion of affected titles on both Xbox Live
and PlayStation Network, as well as their PC counterparts.
"As games get replaced with newer titles, the number of players still
enjoying the older games dwindles to a level - 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," reads the official statement.
The shutdown makes sense for the publisher from a financial and
logistics point of view, as its resources are better spent on the other
99% of customers playing more popular games, but it is likely to
irritate those who've paid money for an Online Pass to access the very
same services that are being axed. In total, eleven games are going down
on April 13. The full list,
from EA's own website, includes:
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Boom Blox Bash Party for Wii
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Burnout Revenge for Xbox 360
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EA Create for PC, PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360
-
EA Sports Active 2.0 for PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360
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EA Sports Active NFL Training Camp for Wii
-
FIFA 10 for PlayStation Portable and Wii
-
The Godfather II for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
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EA Sports MMA for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
-
Need for Speed: ProStreet for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
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The Saboteur (loss of The Midnight Club access) for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
-
Spare Parts for PlayStation 3 Xbox 360
The newest game on the list is Xbox Live Arcade title Spare Parts,
which came out as recently as January 2011. EA Create, EA Sports Active
2.0, EA Sports Active NFL Training Camp, and EA Sports MMA were all
released between October and November of 2010 while the rest are 2009 or
older titles.
EA Sports MMA is the first game featuring EA's Online Pass to be shut
down. The service lets new game owners enter a code for "premium"
features and content, while those buying send-hand need to pay $10 to
access the same content. Although EA Sports MMA was a high profile
attempt to outdo THQ's UFC Undisputed, it wasn't exactly a sales
success, and its promised sequel never materialized.
In other words, it hasn't been replaced with something new and the fact
that some users may have bought an online pass less than a year and a
half ago isn't stopping EA from axing online support for the game.
The company is also closing down the servers for its mobile games
Battlefield 3: Aftershock, which only launched this February and
promptly pulled from the Apple App Store, Fantasi Safari, and Ghost
Harvest.
