Here is something that has not had a lot of media coverage. Electronic Arts has published an announcement stating that it will be shutting down the servers of some of its older titles. What this means is that the affected titles can no longer be played online using one of the EA servers, effectively ending their online lives.
While such actions are, of course, not uncommon, there is one crucial aspect that strikes me as... well, odd: the games that are scheduled to be taken offline can by no stretch of MY imagination, be labeled as old! A lot of last year's sports games will suffer this fate (think Madden 06, NCAA 06, NBA Live 06 and NHL 06) as well as community favorites like Need for Speed Most Wanted and Burnout Revenge.
Granted, in a lot of cases this concerns last gen platforms, but even some Xbox360 titles are on that list. What does this mean for us? Well, basically it means that our 50 USD--or rather 70 USD when you're in Europe--is worth about a year of online play. While I understand EA's need to make room on their servers for their up and coming titles, it still feels wrong to me. Then again, the majority of people who pick up Madden or Need for Speed are likely to be done with the game when the new season comes around. They are the ones that move on to EA's next "innovative" installment in one of their numerous money printing franchises.
Like I said, our 50 USD is worth a year of online yelling and offending people. However, when I dwell upon this subject for an extended period of time (like two, maybe three seconds) I realize that it is actually worth one year of online play AT BEST. What if you're one of those people that are not that quick when it comes to jumping on the train of all things hip, cool and in the now? Well, the only conclusion I can reach is that you'll only have a couple of months of online fun, or perhaps only a few weeks. Granted, a couple of months after the release of any game, said game can be picked up for only a fraction of its original price. But still, it isn't like Electronic Arts is acknowledging this on the packaging of their products (think: "online support until September 1st, 2007").
To be fair, most of EA's particular games aren't bound to create loyal online communities anytime soon. But what about such gems as command & Conquer 3? Can EA allow such a game to be a Starcraft? Or will it be shut down as well when C&C4 comes around? Electronic Arts is a developer of games. Some are great, some aren't. But, like any developer out there, they are in the business of making money, that's one thing I'm sure of.
UPDATE: I forgot the difference between a developer and a publisher. For the record: EA is a publisher of games.
Comments
And yeah, I also assumed that Microsoft was calling the shots, but apparently that's not the case.
Of course it will be a very long while before we'll even be seeing a glimpse of C&C4 but the question still stands. Although I admit that the starcraft comparison is a little off. Perhaps it's better to take Unreal Tournament as an example: the classic Unreal Tournament is still played by quite a few people, while its sequels have been successful in their own right. Although Epic doesn't host the games they do still run the main server (the one that keeps track of all the game servers and matches). This allowed the game be a community favorite for the better part of a decade now.
That said, I find it odd that they are taking off servers for less than a year old 360 games. That lack of support is disturbing. My guess would be that they are releasing the 07 (or 08 ) versions and want people to buy the latest & most updated. Full list for those interested.
I do think there is a difference between taking the sports titles offline (which they do yearly releases of and most people buy yearly) and taking offline something like Burnout Revenge. The latter is more aking to StarCraft (and I'm amazed that Blizzard is still supporting battle.net for StarCraft, to be honest). It is good to note that Burnout Revenge for the 360 is still being supported even if the Xbox/PS2 versions are not.
All in all I think it is a dangerous move by EA, but one that probably will not cause that huge of a fuss as 42/49 titles (really it is 15/17 different title excluding platform) are annual sports games.
Anyway, yeah there's a difference between these annual sports games and games like Burnout. Of course it will not cause that much of a fuss but the point that Allerka made still stands: what about achievements?
Also, even though it may not be that big of a deal it does raise the question whether or not a publisher should support a game for longer than a year and, more important, should they alert customers about this in advance (like some kind of notice on the box). And what is Microsoft's part in all this (since they run Xbox Live)?
I think that it would be nice if publishers gave some advanced warning about how long they would maintain the servers for titles, but it might hurt their sales, and with some titles it might be difficult to gauge how popular the online play would become. Not sure about MS. I'm sure they have a hand in the lifespan of games that are internaly produced, but I don't know about indie developers. They do seem to have a lot of say when it comes to content (pricing, etc.) so it wouldn't surprise me if they had a hand in the removal of service. Then again, I may just be talking out of my patootie.
The other thing I completely agree with is that online achievements shouldn't be part of any game (except for online-only games). I have seen how online achievements take away some of the fun of online play and I think you're totally right on this one.
Allerka
I actually kind of think C&C4 would take a long time to come out. They'll likely just crank out expansion after expansion (in descending quality) for C&C3, until the end of time. Just look at "The Sims 2"