Electronic Arts dropping online support for a dozen games beginning tomorrow, including The Sims 2, FIFA 11, and NBA Jam.
EA is a money grubbing no good company. No reason to take NBA Jam down. It isn't like there is a new version coming out immediately. As for FIFA 11 I would have expected it to be down long before this as each year there is a new game. What other games had their online support taken away ? Why is there not a full list here under this video ?
Yeah, better service, of course. This isn't about forcing people to buy their new releases at least every 2 years.
First I left the Pc for console gaming because DRM was getting ridicolous and harmfull, now I'm driven back to the PC, so I can decide for myself if I want to play a multiplayer title well after it's release. Screw this.
I'm especially miffed about EA Sports Active 2, I didn't care much for the online workout groups but they never patched the few issues that game had (nevermind the silly 1000km trophies). At least I can still use it offline, though I have to wait everytime for the screen to load, that tells me how they don't care for a game after 1.5 years and how I should visit their store to buy more...
2 Like If they are incapable to continue to run their servers for multiplayer, then release the server binaries and allow us customers to host our own servers or even better, develop the game with that in mind and allow direct-IP connections and LAN mode besides their own lobby service.
But that would be long time support and would mean that EA wouldn't have the "power" to force customers into buying basically the same game again with an incremented version number at the end.
It only gets worse with their new "games as a service" approach where you'll be unable to even start the game at all if they decide to turn off the authentication servers. (aka "Always Online DRM")
