EA taking Army of Two, Skate, more offline

im not much interested in EA games anyways. battlefield 2 was good. but guess ima knock battlefield 3 off my wishlist im not tryna get into a game that will be a disgrace a couple years from now. sorry EA yu just got cut =P

They really should still allow players to host games on their own servers like how Fafsa's shadowrun worke, every now and then you'd get a great connection and great game.

typical ea... always shutting down server.... first players spend $$ then they are like: "We made enough... lets shut the servers down! haha!" EA is one of the worst companies out there... Enough of buying from them...

Wait so they steal a part were you payed for?

It is becaue they are NOT part of the new EA pay to play set up. While you get the code for online play if you buy the games new, you still have to fork over their $9.99 if you bought it used. So, when they decide that they want to shut down servers for the gamess that I have forked over moolah to play online, they will need a better justification. Anyone notice how Gametop just put Army of Two on sale for $4.99. Alot of people are not gonna know about this and get a massive dose of frustration and feel ripped off. Wonder if the sales people at the "stop" are sharing this info with those who do buy it?

@blakeney Well I don't really understand why people are so upset. What do you expect when games get so old, or aren't popular? As EA already said, these games make up only 1% of what is used on their servers. That doesn't mean only 1% of EA's personnel work on them. There could be dozens of people on their IT teams keeping track of these games. Personally? I'd rather them focus on their popular games. But I guess people will always complain because this is "EA".

Since most of these games were marketed and designed for full enjoyment of multiplayer and not a single player campaign, this move is truly disgraceful. I simply don't understand how a company like Valve can support Counterstrike for ten years, but a larger company like EA can't bother to keep a few games less than three years old up and running. Bad form, EA.

The company stopped giving a crap years ago, so why bother buying an EA game when you can only play it for a short time online before they decide to shut it down because these idiots claim it only makes up "less than 1 percent of total traffic". This is another fine example of EA fleecing its customers.

Corporate financial oversight. Profit and Loss. Nuff said. Peace Out.

Now why can't they just patch in an update for said games to make the user's console a hosting or partial server? It worked for Iron Phoenix. Albeit that was last gen and the xbox was not as powerful as the xbox 360 and the ps3 but that's this current gen's advantage and they have not really been using these consoles to their fullest. Wish they could get those devs who knew how to do this back on board to make that happen. It's not like those games are MMOs or anything. With an MMO I understand there's a need for several hundreds of players to be on the same server. But why must this be the case with the current gen of 16 - 32 players always be the case. Is there no way to improve on the idea started last gen of the console based server without there needing to be a separate paid server. I mean we already pay for xboxlive or even PSN (to some extent) why not just use the consoles and their RAM for the servers. And if there is a problem with the frame rate test and find a better solution that's still console based and not paid server based to improve the frame rate and respionse times.

As if they don't have enough money to keep those games online a little while longer >.>

WTF!!!!!!!! battefield MC2? wow HELLS no

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

No biggie, EA servers were possibly the worst around, it actually put me off buying anything that had to run off their servers because I knew the lag would be a killer.

This is just the beginning, EA wants to ensure their incomings... i think this is very related with the second hand market. I would not be surprised if later they start charging for online gaming.

This is why quality single player/local multiplayer is so important.

So how long before EA has a complete monopoly? I remember the old electronic arts days. I liked them alot more then.

@airshocker Finally! A sensible and realistic person lol! The same people will be here moaning about "the servers" when their latest EA game comes out.....

@Henninger Buy number 2 then ?:P

Anyone else still think that EA is great?

This sucks can't believe it .

So does this mean that they are putting more emphasis and effort into reactivating online servers for DEF Jam ICON?

Looks like i gotta hurry up & play Army of Two then. Thats a co-op game & if they shut it down then i'll b playing it solo & i wont getting the full scope of the game.

The only one of those games I question is Army of Two. I mean, the game was made for co-op...

@gamerapper pretty sure they mean just skate. since no one plays it anymore. at first i was like "no more skate games?! WTF?!" but i just misunderstood lol.

An online sports game that combines surfing, skateboarding, and snowboarding=millions of dollars of in-game ads for Mt. Dew, T-Mobile, Skullcandy, Element, xgames, etc. Those sports were made for freedom of movement in a huge landscape. Make it happen.

Battlefield 2 MC? Sure alot don't play it, but when you can find a match it still is awesome. Madden 2010? Wow, it's not even 2 years old yet. They act like it's a big expense and wasting the time of their staff. It isn't. They're just too cheap and too built into wall street fraudulent practices to keep good games going. You'd think that as long as a console would last, they'd keep as many of these games going as they could. Seriously how many 'issues' arrise out of a game that is no longer patched? They said it themselves, if these games take up ~1 percent of their online gaming, it doesn't take much of their time or server space to run them. This is them being cheap and I agree with those saying they are trying to force people to upgrade to their newest game patch...i.e. the next year's full price game. Yes now they can shift the ten people working and overseeing these game running to something else, wow, I guess that means you'll get another 1/100th of one cent in dividends pay out per share held. Anyone that doesn't see this as stupid, is clearly out of touch. Madden 2010 and Battlefield 2 MC? Is it a big deal? Not really, but is it another sign of how their idiot corporate culture will screw you over? Sure is. Maybe this time it doesn't bother you, but I guarantee something that springs from this wellspring of idiocy will irk you sometime down the line. We've all been warned before, and here is another example. Glass-Steagall or new dark age

Not surprised, or concerned. I don't play any of the games on the list anymore. People need to grow up and realize EA is a business.

is it just skate or is it skate , skate 2 and skate 3 too?

See, this is exactly why I hate game companies hosting the only online multiplayer servers for a given game: when they retire them, you lose whole functionality (not to mention not ever being able to get the trophies anymore). I don't get it, what happened to pure P2P play that was time-proof? And to think that now, hosting your own game server or having a LAN match is an amazing new feature highlighting the progress of the games industry when this was basic functionality back in the day...

"The decisions to retire older EA games are never easy. The development teams and operational staff pour their hearts into these games" HAH OH WOW, GOOD ONE EA YOU GUYS ARE REAL COMEDIANS EH?

I was afraid it was something dire, like they wouldn't even be doing the online authentication and stat tracking and what not required to logon to bf2142 (which I still play from time to time with any of their newer games), other than that, if it's just their own play servers? Who ever used those after private ones went up? How much maintenance is it to assure authentication works?

army of 2 and orig skate...fine. The sports titles seems like another way for EA to sell their current sports titles...dislike

@dre256x bf3 runs on private dedicated servers that users and communities fund. We dont use crap EA servers. Well at least PC users don't.

@monson21502 I totally agree with you, twice has an EA game become unplayable to me and EA support told me that they won't, not cannot, but won't help me

actually bf3 is outselling mw3 in pre orders but mw3 is already outselling last years black ops pre orders so i bet bf3 will sell more

do not buy online EA games..... thanks to them i had to make a second psn account because my ea online account was deleted when my first ps3 died... i tried to reset the password but it still didnt work... i contacked ea and they said i had to make another psn account.... now after a year they drop online support for most all its games!!! do not support ea they dont support you!!! ps mw3 gonna nuke bf3 in sales:P

I perfectly agree with this... Take down those servers, upgrade them if they want then used them to boost current and upcoming games.. We all know the new Star Wars mmo will need quality servers, not to mention BF3 and FIFA 2012.. Ah mean why keep servers going if they being used represent 1% or less..

@ GabrielOnuris... Dont release them at full price? Really? Those servers are not free. Why spend money and time working on them and keeping them running if there are only 4 people on them a day? They could use those people on making more popular games a little smoother so more people enjoy their product.

Good,ppl shud not still b playin those games

@Nix_olsen They had to shutdown multiplayer for all multiplayer LoTr games because they lost the license

Why make games online then? If it will be temporarily, don't release them at full price.

what the hell r they doing this for?

That's right EA make us buy your newer games even though they are same as the older games. Betrayal!!! Just because only a few people play those games does not mean you should throw them under the bus. They better not be making new copies of those games and sell them for full price. Knowing EA they will. I don't own a single EA game and I never will, no regerts here.

Some of the games on the list actually surprise me for still being online. I don't think this is really bad, but maybe some people will get hit by this.

If you are going to shut servers down, you should update games so that they have some sort of p2p, so they aren't completely useless.

@votc200 Every corporation/company is greedy. It wouldn't make sense for them not to be. And once they're big enough, they stop caring about their customers. (i.e. Netflix) The only reason Vavle is the way they are is because they still aren't a major studio. They produce and develop Vavle games, nothing else. Which is awesome. If really Vavle cared about their customers though, they'd develop Half Life 3.

Those online passes aren't really worth anything if they just shut down the servers. Granted I may not play a game that's 4-5 years old but if I had to pay to play online I would expect that to be available whenever I choose to play it.

I don't really think this is too big of a deal because most of these have been around for years and have at least 1 sequel that still is online. My only problem is NCAA Basketball 2010. Not many people play it, but it's the last college basketball game that's been made. Now I'll have to play 2K8 online if anyone is still on there.

This going to become a trend for games that yearly releases. And when it does, what about all those online passes?