If a new piece of hardware breaks compatibility with old software, at least you have the ability to hook up the old hardware. When Electronic Arts closes down the online services for a bunch of games on August 11, there's no going back. SKATE, Army of Two and others are going offline.

"The decisions to retire older EA games are never easy," reads the company's support site. "The development teams and operational staff pour their hearts into these games almost as much as the customers playing them and it is hard to see one retired. But as games get replaced with newer titles, the number of players still enjoying the older games dwindles below a point--fewer than 1% of all peak online players across all EA titles--where it’s feasible to continue the behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping these games up and running."

EA is usually pretty clear about when its games are going offline. You can view a whole list of what games have moved into the dark on the same support website. Here's what's gone in just a few weeks:

• Army of Two (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
• Army of Two Demo (Xbox 360)
• Battlefield 2142 Demo (PC)
• Battlefield 2: Modern Combat (Xbox 360)
• Battlefield 2: Modern Combat Demo (Xbox 360)
• Medal of Honor Airborne (PSP)
• Medal of Honor Heroes 2 (PSP, Wii)
• NASCAR 09 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
• NCAA Basketball 10 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
• NCAA Football 10 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
• Need for Speed Most Wanted (PC, Xbox 360)
• Need for Speed Undercover (PSP)
• SKATE (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
• Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 10 (PSP, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii)
• Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 11 Demo (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

In addition to these titles, EA plans to end support for both Madden NFL 10 and NHL 10 as of October 1st. If for some reason you're especially fond of the rosters in either of these two-year-old sports games, you might want to start getting as many games in as you can.

If a new piece of hardware breaks compatibility with old software, at least you have the ability to hook up the old hardware. When Electronic Arts closes down the online services for a bunch of games on August 11, there's no going back. SKATE, Army of Two and others are going offline.

"The decisions to retire older EA games are never easy," reads the company's support site. "The development teams and operational staff pour their hearts into these games almost as much as the customers playing them and it is hard to see one retired. But as games get replaced with newer titles, the number of players still enjoying the older games dwindles below a point--fewer than 1% of all peak online players across all EA titles--where it’s feasible to continue the behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping these games up and running."

EA is usually pretty clear about when its games are going offline. You can view a whole list of what games have moved into the dark on the same support website. Here's what's gone in just a few weeks:

• Army of Two (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
• Army of Two Demo (Xbox 360)
• Battlefield 2142 Demo (PC)
• Battlefield 2: Modern Combat (Xbox 360)
• Battlefield 2: Modern Combat Demo (Xbox 360)
• Medal of Honor Airborne (PSP)
• Medal of Honor Heroes 2 (PSP, Wii)
• NASCAR 09 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
• NCAA Basketball 10 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
• NCAA Football 10 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
• Need for Speed Most Wanted (PC, Xbox 360)
• Need for Speed Undercover (PSP)
• SKATE (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
• Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 10 (PSP, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii)
• Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 11 Demo (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

In addition to these titles, EA plans to end support for both Madden NFL 10 and NHL 10 as of October 1st. If for some reason you're especially fond of the rosters in either of these two-year-old sports games, you might want to start getting as many games in as you can.

Don't play many EA games online.

Wow, they were still supporting like 7 year old games. Can't say I'm surprised, given none of those are subscription games, so at this point they're just losing money.

Nothing there too shocking or controversial, I think. Certainly can't blame them.

Oh no now what are me and my Army of Two clan going to do on Friday nights? Oh no wait that never existed...

None of these are games that I expect many people to still be playing rather than the sequels. This is bound to happen and it's good of them to continue services for several years after official releases.

Nothing shocking, really. Can't remember when I played any of those games online last.

Once again proving that letting EA run their own servers is a shitty experience.

The Army of Two one is kinda bizarre. It's not that old yet and the only way you should ever play Army of Two is in Co-Op.

I hope you guys play all these games for TNT on August 11th!

Once again proving that letting EA run their own servers is a shitty experience.

Makes sense. If you are still playing any of these games well...tough tits toots!

So.. are they going to continue to do this with games that you bought an Online Pass for? What if I want to keep playing the game I paid specifically to play online?

Remembered going back through some bargain games a few months ago & found that there were still people playing Battlefield2 online with the 360. I was just going to run through the maps to see how they looked or mess around with trying crazy things using the vehicles but was quite shocked to see people still playing it. Remember at the time it came out was quite fun but glad that they went the way they did with the explosive tech in the Bad Company games.

Well, that's disappointing. Most Wanted is a helluva lot of fun, as are a few of the others on here. 
 
Alas, the tides of time surge ever on...

I only see one PC game on there and I am wondering why. Cause it is a demo?

That's pretty fucking lame. I still hadn't gotten around to Army of Two (yes, I know it's almost a whopping three years old).

It would seem to me that it would be reasonable to require that games be supported for the life of the console. Yes, I know some matchmaking service may have to be run by the developer or something, but all the heavy load is put on users since games are usually hosted on the console.

The problem with seeing this as normal operations is that it isn't. There is no need to switch off the old 486 down the hall that is just sitting there making sure matchmaking and CD key auth is working for a title. In the modern server environment then virtual-box it onto one of your blade arrays and if the numbers are low then you haven't lost anything because the servers will be doing the other stuff you put on them. It means you have a good reason to say "sorry auth for these 6 year old games die for an evening, we had a tenfold increase in users randomly that day and we didn't expect it so didn't have the excess capacity to support it. Our bad" but to just switch off games is to remove significant value from old games (in cases of co-op led titles it removes the main component). Of course EA does this to keep costs low by pushing new titles in a franchise or to avoid paying for any techs to run basic maintenance (like moving code to VMs or running a few blades more than the currently do to deal with the small trickle traffic) but for some reason that doesn't lead them to offering the titles with lower prices at point of sale.

Hopefully people will continue to care about games and the history of them and so work out ways of unbreaking any of these games so in the future we can go back and see them as they should be.

But I haven't played those games yet! EA should cater directly to me!

They are shutting down '10  sports games in '11 that have only been out for two years.  This is one step closer to them simply only supporting online with the latest year sports game.  Tiger Woods 10 is still a good game -- this pisses me off.

Removing Army of Two is pretty dumb. That shouldn't even use EA servers, it's only co-op isn't it?

The problem with seeing this as normal operations is that it isn't. There is no need to switch off the old 486 down the hall that is just sitting there making sure matchmaking and CD key auth is working for a title. In the modern server environment then virtual-box it onto one of your blade arrays and if the numbers are low then you haven't lost anything because the servers will be doing the other stuff you put on them. It means you have a good reason to say "sorry auth for these 6 year old games die for an evening, we had a tenfold increase in users randomly that day and we didn't expect it so didn't have the excess capacity to support it. Our bad" but to just switch off games is to remove significant value from old games (in cases of co-op led titles it removes the main component). Of course EA does this to keep costs low by pushing new titles in a franchise or to avoid paying for any techs to run basic maintenance (like moving code to VMs or running a few blades more than the currently do to deal with the small trickle traffic) but for some reason that doesn't lead them to offering the titles with lower prices at point of sale.

Hopefully people will continue to care about games and the history of them and so work out ways of unbreaking any of these games so in the future we can go back and see them as they should be.

Wouldn't this just be the EA account stuff? Matchmaking should still work over XBL, shouldn't it? 
 
I seem to recall deleting my Army of Two save in an attempt to restart the campaign and having it download my progress from my EA profile instead.

So.. are they going to continue to do this with games that you bought an Online Pass for? What if I want to keep playing the game I paid specifically to play online?

They are shutting down '10  sports games in '11 that have only been out for two years.  This is one step closer to them simply only supporting online with the latest year sports game.  Tiger Woods 10 is still a good game -- this pisses me off.

Another example of EA shitting on the people who can't afford games as soon as they're released. Their games are usually quality but their treatment of consumers is pretty bad

If only there was a technology available to allow a dedicated group of people to set up some kind of private server like thing to keep playing games they may enjoy long after developers stop caring to support them. Like some sort of always there server. For the dedicated bunch of fans that want to keep playing the game they paid money for.

Woooh, Tiger 10!

The biggest problem for me is that they want to run their own matchmaking stuff specifically so they can shut it down when they want you to buy the new one.
If this really was about the costs of hosting they would just use the xbox live matchmaking.

@laserbolts said:

@Khann

So.. are they going to continue to do this with games that you bought an Online Pass for? What if I want to keep playing the game I paid specifically to play online?

Which one was that?

One what?

@shazb0t said:

Well, that's disappointing. Most Wanted is a helluva lot of fun, as are a few of the others on here. Alas, the tides of time surge ever on...

I tried playing it online a year ago and NOBODY was playing it.

Army of Zero... Nice joke :)

Didn't they just put BF2142 on Steam? :(

And yet I still don't care. If people aren't playing the games anymore and they're using up resources to just sit there doing nothing, I can understand the policy.

This is fucking bullshit. The traffic on these games is so small they can probably host them all on one server - it doesn't cost them much at all to run them. They're still on current-gen systems for god's sake, what if someone picks one of these games up used at GS and is all surprised why they can't play online? Fuck you greedy motherfuckers, EA.

@sandweed said:

@crusader8463: System link probably still works

*whoosh*

@somejerk said:

Didn't they just put BF2142 on Steam? :(

2142 doesn't seem to be on Steam, neither is the demo that they're shutting down.

Removing Army of Two is pretty dumb. That shouldn't even use EA servers, it's only co-op isn't it?

I would like to see the numbers of how many people play on these servers every month. I'm quite sure the number is horrificly low. It may sound harsh by EA to shut these off but if we knew the (probably) low activity these games have online we would probably agree with their choice.

Hah. Ironic, I recently played some Half-Life DM with 31 other strangers. Its fucking bananas and Crossfire is still fun as ever. Camp in bunker, plant trip min-...uhh. Got too carried away there.

Please tell me there will be an extra long TNT.

@laserbolts said:

@Khann

So.. are they going to continue to do this with games that you bought an Online Pass for? What if I want to keep playing the game I paid specifically to play online?

Which one was that?

One what?

If only there was a technology available to allow a dedicated group of people to set up some kind of private server like thing to keep playing games they may enjoy long after developers stop caring to support them. Like some sort of always there server. For the dedicated bunch of fans that want to keep playing the game they paid money for.

Last chance to become a battlefield veteran with modern combat folks!

@This_Dude said:

Once again proving that letting EA run their own servers is a shitty experience.

Is it though? Do you play any of these games still? Know anyone that does? I'm not trying to be a jerk, but they aren't stupid. They're probably shutting these specific ones down because hardly anyone will care.  

So basically EA is warning us from their actions that any game we buy from them has an online shelf life of 2 to 3 years. Got it. I'll remember that the next time I see current and future EA online enabled titles.

EA probably lost more money losing consumer faith from this stunt as opposed to doing nothing at all.

Corporations are so fucking myopic these days. Even their greed gets in the way of their bottom line of making money. Good job, asshats.

What actual server maintence is there for this stuff? Aren't all these games peer to peer and doesn't Microsoft handle the match making side of things on their servers?