I found this list to be particularly depressing:

http://www.ea.com/1/service-updates

This is the list of games that will be, and have been, shut down by EA. Just a long list of someone's shattered dreams.

I have international friends who still play Sims 2, I wonder if this will cut them off.

Yep especially for consoles all EA servers are bound to go offline 1 or 2 years after the game comes out.

Seems fair to me. Can't keep something around forever for nostalgia sake. These things cost money.

I remember when me and my brother wanted to duke it out in EA MMA only to find "Fuck you, we're not server supporting this title anymore." It's part of the reason this whole "let's go digital" thing is really tricky to me. Flip a switch and you own a useless piece of plastic or code.

@magzine: Yes but EA is notorious for shutting down servers extremely quickly while most other publishers on consoles keep the online up for at least 3 years. You are lucky to get a full year of server support for an EA title, even with them now charging people for online passes, which you would think would allow them to keep servers up longer. EA just wants as much profit as possible and its why their policy is shut down servers very quickly to force you to buy whatever new game they have out or might have out in a few years.

@magzine said:

Or you could just build your systems such that they don't require external servers? Most Xbox 360 games don't need them - everything is handled by Microsoft. That's what you pay for when you buy Gold. But EA wants everything to go through their internal systems, which means they have to run severs. This is ENTIRELY the fault of EA at least on the 360.

(Note: I am less familiar with how PSN works when it comes to games. Maybe EA has no choice there.)

@lazyhoboguy: My guess is that EA doesn't want to keep a whole bunch of servers running and people maintaining them so that a couple hundred people can play their copy of FIFA 06.

@lebkin: Having Microsoft run the servers is just delaying the inevitable. Games hosted by Microsoft will go down eventually... just a bit later than EA. End result is still the same.

March 29, 2013 -- Online Services Shutdown - Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes for PC

Less than one year? Amazing. Glad that games cost nothing to make, or that would have been an embarrassing waste of time and money for everyone involved.