GameSpy, the engine designed to host and run online games, will be shutting down on May 31st. Many games that still have a supportive player base will be shutting down on that date or at the end of June. A few of the more popular games such as Battlefield 2, Battlefield 1942 and Star Wars: Battlefront 2 will be affected by the shutdown with no official solution to keep online support.
EA has announced they are “exploring community-supported options to preserve online functionality for these titles, such as multiplayer.”
Through service updates, a large list of affected games has been posted. EA has set a benchmark, “fewer than 1% of peak online players,” for choosing to shutdown online play due to the expenses and work required to keep the games online.
Several 2K and Rockstar games will also be affected by the closure and have not all found online support. Some Playstation 2, Wii, and Nintendo DS games that were running online support on GameSpy servers will need to find new homes or be shut down as well.
