GameSpy services shutdown will affect 50 EA games

Newsbrief: Last month, GameSpy announced that it was shutting down its hosting services for good. Electronic Arts said today that after evaluating the situation, it has determined that online services for all EA games that use the GameSpy platform will be closed down at the end of June. A total of 50 EA games will see their online portions shut down as a result, said the company, including Battlefield 2, Bulletstorm, Crysis 2 and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. "Unfortunately, due to technical challenges and concerns about the player experience, we do not have a solution at this time," says the company. The statement added that the company is still investigating community-supported options to preserve online functionality for some of the titles. The full list of games being shut down on June 30 can be found here. Update: Mobile game developer and publisher Glu Mobile, who acquired GameSpy Technology from IGN back in 2012 and is therefore responsible for shutting down the GameSpy hosting services, responded to Gamasutra's request for comment with the following statement: "Glu’s acquisition of GameSpy has been successful from the perspective of technology gained. The GameSpy multiplayer technology and team are now the foundation of Glu’s multiplayer platform. The GameSpy business itself proved to no longer be a viable business model, leading to Glu’s decision to sunset the hosting business." When asked about whether or not the company might consider making some or all of the GameSpy Technology hosting services open-source, a Glu Mobile representative gave the following statement: "Glu has no plans to provide this tech as an open-source offering. We have worked with partners to transition service – although the majority have chosen not to. Partners are making this decision based on economics of the service (alongside technical decisions based upon their ability to host the services and modify the games as needed.) "Unfortunately the services provided by GameSpy are more complicated than is commonly thought – it’s not a question of simply hosting a single server."