EA Retires Many Old Game Servers

Electronic Arts has announced the shutdown of 17 of its aging game servers including servers for Army of Two, Need for Speed Most Wanted, and Battlefield 2: Modern Combat.

"The decisions to retire older EA games are never easy," reads the official post. "The development teams and operational staff pour their hearts into theirs 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 u and running. We would rather our hard-working engineering and IT staff focus on keeping a positive experience for the other 99% of customers playing our more popular games."

The needs of the money many outweigh the needs of the few.

To be fair, having worked within the industry, I can say for a certainty that most, if not all, of the network engineers and game masters pour their hearts and souls into the projects they're tasked with, regardless of how redundant those tasks may be to most players to whom their work remains largely invisible.

"We hope you have gotten many hours of enjoyment out of the games and we appreciate your ongoing patronage."

The titles being shut down include the following: