14 DAY TRIAL // Electronic Arts has announced that it’s once again shutting down online multiplayer access to a variety of its older games in order to focus its resources on better supporting existing titles.
EA has launched a huge array of games throughout the years, many with an online multiplayer component that allowed either actual competitive matches or just access to DLC and extra goodies.
Every few months, however, the company posts a fresh list of games that will see their online component deactivated.
A new series of titles will go offline next month, on April 13, including popular ones like Need for Speed: ProStreet, Burnout Revenge, The Godfather II, FIFA 10, EA Sports MMA, or The Saboteur.
Check out the full list of titles affected and their platforms below.
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 According to EA, such a decision wasn’t easy but, judging by its data, less than 1% of online gamers still accessed these titles, so it’s much easier to just turn them off and focus resources on supporting games that are more popular.
“The decisions to retire older EA games are never easy,” the company said. “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,” EA concluded.
Have you played these titles online recently or have you completed them a long time ago?