EA Fumbles, Pulls the Plug on Madden 09 Server and Two Dozen Others

More like this
16

Comments

+ Add a Comment
avatar

IFLATLINEI

January 09, 2010 at 10:01am

Some of you Zombies need to start standing up to this kind of B.S. I cant continue being the only one. Im a business man and I understand the economics behind a move like this but the problem I have is that for many gamers this makes a serious investment totally worthless. The easy fix is for companies like EA is to release the control over which servers are used when they need to make a move like this and let the gamers host their own servers free of EA or anyone else if they desire. Many games come with a LAN option which usually allows gamers to use another program run on a computer to link consoles for online gaming. 

avatar

Trooper_One

January 08, 2010 at 12:19pm

"What if a game doesn’t hit sales goals? Maybe EA will do a quick cost analysis and shut it down."

 The answer for that is simply to not purchase any EA games where online is a requirement for fun.

 

On a tangent, I was considering buying Dragon Age: Origins on their EA server.  But remember how poor their download service was and how their interface sucks in comparison to Steam, I bought it through Steam instead.

If EA wants to remain relevant in 21 Century gaming, they need to invest some $$$ on their cloud content.

avatar

nekollx

January 08, 2010 at 12:33pm

 EA: Invest?

AT&T: That's Crazy Talk!

------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.

avatar

Digital-Storm

January 08, 2010 at 8:39am

And remember Ladies and Gentlemen. IWNet, it gives them the power to shut you down when they release a new game.

avatar

TechJunkie

January 08, 2010 at 6:14am

EA is piss poor. I bought BF 2142 retail and later decided to buy the Northern Strike add-on through their store. After purchase, they make you DL and use their download manager to obtain the purchase which seemed crappy to me but ok, it was really no big deal. After multiple, MULTIPLE tries to download my software I purchased, I gave up and uninstalled the download manager so I could reinstall it thinking maybe I had a bad install or something. When I uninstalled it, it wiped every...EVERY file folder I had on my desktop. One of those folders contained ALL my wedding pics from multiple cameras that I had put on the PC just that morning. After hours and hours trying to find and locate that folder or pics, yes I went through every folder, program and files. I even searched and used GetDataBack software to recover them. Well to say I didn't. I did however recover most of them (some horribly messed up) using some (can't remember what I used) undelete software. In essence, It deleted the folder and never went into my recycle bin. Needless to say, I will never purchase an EA game again.

avatar

punditguy

January 08, 2010 at 5:48am

If it's a matter of not wanting to maintain servers, that's easy to handle. Third parties like Amazon and Google have all the server space in the world, and I'm sure with the right kind of agreements the servers could continue to run without any expense to EA.

I'm guessing that this is a business decision aimed at getting people to update/upgrade within franchises, however, and not a server issue.

___________________________________________

Preferred boot, but will give this Maximum PC thing a try.

avatar

smashingpumpin

January 08, 2010 at 2:49am

"EA Games. Challenge Everything"- now how fitting is that for a slogan?

_______________________________________________

Westwood R.I.P.

avatar

Merkury

January 07, 2010 at 8:01pm

I first began to hate EA when they destroyed what should have been a great PC racing sim.  It was NASCAR SimRacing.  I bought that game and a force feedback wheel, only to find that the game had more bugs than a cheap hotel in the ghetto.  The patches they released didn't even address the most major issues.  I vowed then, to never purchase another EA title, but somehow managed to still obtain two or three more.  EA has always seemed shady to me in recent years.  They seem to provide a stripped down game and want to sell you anything and everything the game has to offer.  Hell, if you want to pay five bucks, they will sell you crap you could unlock if you would just play the game.  It is a real shame that so many good game companies were bought out by this money hungry, piss poor excuse for a game developer.

avatar

zakn

January 07, 2010 at 7:27pm

Devs, This is why you let communities set up Dedicated servers

avatar

nekollx

January 08, 2010 at 9:11am

 THIS

Teh devs bitch about server costs and the solution is litterly smacking them in the face.

Rember once you shut down the server you cut off a income stream from box sales

------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.

avatar

Sodman

January 07, 2010 at 7:26pm

and I wonder how much they are hoping people will buy the latest edition of these games just so they can once again play them online? veryy cunning move on EA's behalf.

avatar

somethingelse

January 07, 2010 at 6:12pm

ok, fair enough, this is a logical step if they want to save money on hardware.  but there is a simple solution; add deticated server support in the future titles.  if the games are still in demand, i'm sure someone would host the servers for people to play.

this makes me wonder, how long before infinity ward cuts off their modern warfare 2 servers??

 

what signature, where do i sign?

avatar

vistageek

January 07, 2010 at 6:04pm

EA just doesn't get it...If they don't keep their customers happy, the customers stop buying their products...

avatar

johnny3144

January 07, 2010 at 10:08pm

what EA do get is they are in a oligopoly market, meaning the market isn't very competitive. i hated EA when they pulled the BS with BF2142, however i am still forced to buy their games. why? there isn't many other out there. wanna play Mass Effect? EA. wanna play Dragon Age: Origin? EA. Wanna play Valve games on console? EA. the sims or spore? EA again. there isn't many choice for the players, you either buy their things, or you don't play games. and being the biggest out there, they are basically in a monopoly position, giving them signfincant control over the market. Steam is slowly gaining grounds, but all steam have it's a part of the smallest platform in gaming(real gaming, not those mine sweeper crap), PC.

 

they can pull crap like this as long as they like, and their sale won't drop signficantly(unless they do something so bad, gamers decide to stop playing games)

 

what i don't understand, is how they can still lose money while practically in monopoly. maybe wasted too much money publishing crappy games(like the sport stuff?).

avatar

compro01

January 12, 2010 at 3:57pm

WRT sports games, EA is not part of an oligopoly, they are in fact a monopoly.  They have exclusive licensing agreements with the NHL, NFL, NBA, FIFA, NASCAR, and others.

avatar

I Jedi

January 07, 2010 at 5:56pm

EA is in it for the money. This comes as no surprise to either me, nor to anyone else here. Instead, the title should read "EA finds another way to pocket the change while leaving the consumer out in the cold."

Log in to MaximumPC directly or log in using Facebook

Forgot your username or password?
Click here for help.

Login with Facebook
Log in using Facebook to share comments and articles easily with your Facebook feed.
Don't have an account? Join Now.