Electronic Arts is the second largest video game publisher in the world. With that title comes a lot of responsibility, not only for putting out new games, but for keeping existing ones up and running. Of course, when you’re publishing hundreds of games, that’s easier said than done. In order to keep up with the times, as well as to conserve funds and labor, EA is shutting down online service to a dozen of their older titles come March and April. The titles scheduled for service termination are as follows:
March 16, 2010
Def Jam – PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
The Godfather – PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Lord of the Rings – PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames – PC
Need for Speed: Carbon – PSP
Need for Speed: ProStreet – PSP
Simpsons – PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
April 15, 2010
Burnout 3: Takedown – PlayStation 2, Xbox
Army of Two – PlayStation 3 (Asia only)
Battlefield 2: Modern Combat – Xbox
Madden NFL 09 – Xbox
In a statement regarding the termination of service for these games, EA said “As background information, the games scheduled for shutdown in March and April 2010 represent less than 0.3% of all peak players online across all EA title.” Less than 0.3% you say? Well that’s not too bad. Until you consider that Electronic Arts has a huge audience, and that even 0.3% represents thousands of dissatisfied gamers. Of course, what EA says is true. There is a lot of behind-the-scenes work that goes into providing online service for these games which takes up time, money, and manpower, all of which could be directed toward improving the service for the other 99.97% of gamers. So let’s not get too angry with EA.
After all, they’re only human.
