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EA shutting down Battlefield 2 360, Need For Speed and Tiger Woods servers
- Thread starter Chaplain
- Start date
balladofwindfishes said:
No doubt, some suit at E.A. concluded that so long as people could continue to play their games online, they might hesitate to upgrade to this year's version. And that this represented a sales obstacle. The same principal is what drove EA to stop letting people do roster updates on the NHL series. People were downloading the updated rosters, but not buying the new $60 game every year. They put a stop to it pretty quickly if I recall correctly.
The thing is, this is all kinds of horrible for the consumer. Blocking roster updates was shady enough, but it wasn't all together shocking given how EA operates. But now EA forces you into an "ONLINE PASS -- which they claim is free with the purchase of any new game but EA games are $5-10 more expensive than other new releases. So the online pass is shady anyways, but now apparently is only good for 2 years after a game launches -- NOT two years after you buy said game. Or your Online Pass you bought for said game.That's an important distinction.
So I feel like EA does "charge" for online play, cause their game prices are inflated by $5-10. And if you buy second hand, or sell your games later, you're out $10 either way cause the game devalues faster due to not having online play for the person who picks it up. And THAT person has to pay another $10 for his online pass. Imagine if he just picked up TW2010 "new" a month ago, or picked it up second hand and bought a BRAND NEW SHINY ONLINE PASS for it 3 weeks ago?
So ... even tho you the consumer are paying your internet bill, and your xbox live bill ... and you paid your EA game bill (inflated by EA's Online Pass) or you bought the game second hand and purchased an Online pass .. EA is still putting the screws to you, and forcing you to upgrade your title.
Batshit crazy and people should fucking riot imo.
I H8 Memes
Member
It seemed like over the last 2 years a lot more gamers have been saying that they wouldnt be buying the newest Madden since there are so few improvements to the series. Guess again.
Emperor Bohe
Member
This practice is why I am always skeptical to purchase an EA game (I don't own any of their online games for current gen consoles). Ever since they shut down the NBA Street V3 and the SSX3 servers I've been a sad sad man.
outunderthestars
Banned
God this generation of console gaming continues to get worse.
Shutting down 2010 versions of sports games???? EA can go die in a fucking chemical fire.
It's like every six weeks a publisher has to prove that they can be a bigger dick than Booby Kotick, then Kotick has to regain his crown and the cycle starts all over again.
Shutting down 2010 versions of sports games???? EA can go die in a fucking chemical fire.
It's like every six weeks a publisher has to prove that they can be a bigger dick than Booby Kotick, then Kotick has to regain his crown and the cycle starts all over again.
Speedymanic
Banned
Neuromancer said:
This is an interesting point. What happens when developers decide to shutdown servers for titles that have online passes.
Legal action/boycott of the developer? Or will we just accept it as people will most likely have moved onto the next, big title.
Louis Cyphre
Banned
Speedymanic said:
Which makes it even more of a shady practice to be requiring online passes.
I'm wondering if this is another reason EA is pulling support for titles on Steam now that they have Origin? Does anyone know if games on Steam get pulled like this?
Heart Attack
Member
Burnout Paradise lives another day 
Rahxephon91
Banned
Battlefield MC was a pretty good game and in some ways better then the BC games. It's already been pretty much dead, shame to see the final nail in the coffin though.
NBtoaster said:
That uses PSN matchmaking services despite having a server browser. TF2 360/PS3 was P2P.
Htown said:
Once again: BO3:T X-box was up UNTIL the X-box Live shutdown and that had 0 players. EVERYONE said if they shut down the BO3:T servers, there would be hell to pay. I can see the same thing happening if they even threaten to drop BF2 despite the fact that BF2 has MORE PLAYERS than any of these servers being shut down probably daily or weekly.
SafeinSound
Member
I didn't even know BF2 was out for consoles.
Also, I panicked when I saw Need For Speed, because I thought it might be Hot Pursuit, but that would be silly.
Also, I panicked when I saw Need For Speed, because I thought it might be Hot Pursuit, but that would be silly.
Ninja Scooter
Member
ciaossu said:
Unethical? Are you serious? You guys have really low standards for what is unethical or infringes on consumer rights. Shutting down servers for 2 year old sports games that likely have very few people online is not unethical.
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
No but it is a dick move.Ninja Scooter said:
br0ken_shad0w
Member
LAMBO said:
Can't believe this shit is now invading PC games as well.
Ninja Scooter
Member
Stallion Free said:
You can't please everyone. I don't think there's anything shady or unethical about this. It's pretty transparent. They are shutting down servers to old games with small audiences to save some bucks. Yes in a perfect world they'd keep every server open forever but that's not going to happen. It is affecting as small a group of gamers as possible. If they start shutting down servers for popular games or games that are only a few months old, then I'll bitch, but that will never happen.
You would think with EA starting their Origin online service (R.I.P. the ONE and ONLY Origin) that they would extend that service to the consoles so they don't shut down the online play for a lot of their games. But no, they want to copy Steam and stick Old Republic and Mass Effect 3 and BF3 on there.
I mean, I haven't even played Army of Two online or Madden 10 yet. Some of us are very slow in playing games (work, school, family, etc.) and this whole thing this gen of online play having an expiration date really sucks. If someone wants to play online on a game that's 5 years old in 2011, that's their business. It's enough to make people swear off buying games.
EA wants to make Activision like money, but they are really screwing over their community of gamers.
I mean, I haven't even played Army of Two online or Madden 10 yet. Some of us are very slow in playing games (work, school, family, etc.) and this whole thing this gen of online play having an expiration date really sucks. If someone wants to play online on a game that's 5 years old in 2011, that's their business. It's enough to make people swear off buying games.
EA wants to make Activision like money, but they are really screwing over their community of gamers.
I didn't say cruel, ruthless or evil. I do think it's unethical, and I'm not sure why that word is so taboo in this situation. Those games are current generation, will still be available for purchase and will be missing the online play component. Not to mention EA is the only company with the NFL license in the case of Madden.Ninja Scooter said:
Most people don't buy a new sports game every year, and online play is an important component.
balladofwindfishes
Member
these games aren't even that old.Ninja Scooter said:
On any given day you can find a match on pretty much every game on the list.
You're trying to rationalize anti-consumer practices, and it's very sad the gaming industry has come to this.
Azure Dream
Member
Game Analyst said:
The Great Steam Question.
Actually, the answer for most services seems to be "You can still access it, just no one can ever buy it new." But I wouldn't trust EA with that.
OldJadedGamer
Banned
Kulock said:
Works that way too on XBLA when they pull games for whatever reason.
iSurvivedTheOutage
Member
everybody was all
Cloud gaming will never be exclusively the option, however publishers don't typically want to pull games, it's usually because of licenses that are elapsed, this could be countered by having the contracts be formed knowing the games will be DD essentially forever. But that's why you can usually still get the games, because the contract is only for sales of the game, not redemption by current owners.
balladofwindfishes
Member
I don't think there is another NCAA, is there?kamspy said:
Alex Connolly
Member
People are too harsh on the Modern Combat BF2. It was great fun.
MidnightScott
Banned
Funny how they keep killing servers, but Nintendo hasn't cut DS or Wii for their own games. This is why I won't buy a game unless it has a good single player game. If it's just about the online play then that will eventually disappear. :/
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
Not if those people actually buy the new one. Then it's a good but unscrupulous business practice.ciaossu said:
Cloud gaming will always be legally dicey in terms of ownership, because you don't own the software, only the ability to play it while the service is running, and the service will always be provided as is, without guarantee of constant up time or of the company being around for you to play it. Steam is effectively that way too, but they've said if Valve ever died they'd just release the locks on your games and allow you play without connecting to Steam (which you can kind of do anyway).Game Analyst said:
The alternative for a middle ground would be say buying Crysis on OnLive gets you a CD key you can activate on EA for a real copy, the problem then is why are you using a shitty cloud service if your machine can handle the load locally? The cool thing about cloud gaming is you don't need a powerful machine yourself.
I personally don't see a real future for cloud gaming. It seems like a stop gap at best.