EA has just announced plans to retire the online services of multiple EA titles. The company justified its decision by arguing that too few players used these services, which made it difficult for the company to justify keeping these games up and running.
But as games get replaced with newer titles, the number of players still enjoying the older games dwindles to a level — fewer than 1% of all peak online players across all EA titles — where it’s no longer feasible to continue the behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping these games up 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 games whose online services EA plans to retire includes the following:
April 13, 2012 — Online Services Shutdown
- BOOM BLOX Bash Party for Wii
- Burnout Revenge for Xbox 360
- EA Create for PC, PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360
- EA Sports Active 2.0 for PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360
- EA Sports Active NFL Training Camp for Wii
- FIFA 10 for PlayStation Portable and Wii
- The Godfather II for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
- MMA for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
- Need for Speed ProStreet for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
- The Saboteur (loss of The Midnight Club access) for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
- Spare Parts for PlayStation 3 Xbox 360
March 31, 2012 — Online Services Shutdown
- BATTLEFIELD 3: Aftershock for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch
- Fantasi Safari for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch
- Ghost Harvest for iPhone