All GameSpy games on all platforms being shut down on May 31

[jacobgrocks]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/04/03/ ... es-at-risk

Hundreds of video games -- including those made by EA, Ubisoft, Gearbox, Nintendo, Konami, Capcom, 5th Cell, Koei, Firaxis, and more -- may be taken offline as Glu's GameSpy multiplayer servers shut down on May 31.

GameSpy was a third-party technology used by publishers and developers to host online services. It was acquired by Glu from IGN in 2012. At the time, Glu CEO Niccolo de Masi said, "We expect that the acquisition of GameSpy will be earnings neutral in the near term. However, GameSpy team and technology is expected to help us drive higher monetization and lifetime value in Glu's titles from 2013 on."

Notable titles included under GameSpy's multiplayer servers included, at one point, Red Dead Redemption, Civilization IV, Grand Theft Auto IV, SEGA & Sonic All-Stars Racing, and Borderlands.






03:10


Red Dead Redemption - Multiplayer Competitive Mode
Different publishers are handling the shutdown in different ways. Recently, Nintendo explained that it would abandon hundreds of Nintendo Wi-Fi games, as the titles relied on the same servers. Some publishers will follow suit, as it may not be financially viable to support long-forgotten or unplayed games. Others have already migrated their online services to new servers, including Steamworks.

Sources confirmed to IGN that Rockstar Games' titles will remain unaffected, as Glu has been working with developers for approximately two years to transition their games from GameSpy to other online servers.

We've contacted multiple developers and publishers asking about contingency plans to keep their games from going offline permanently.

An Activision representative explained, "Activision won't be affected." Bohemia Interactive told IGN, "Yes, we are aware of GameSpy issue and we are very near to [finding] some suitable solution, but I cant tell you more details at the moment."

In a forum post, Bohemia explained further: "This is going to affect multiplayer in our games that use Gamespy for matchmaking, cd keys authentification and NAT traversal from Arma: Resistance to Arma 3. We are planning to introduce an alternative solution using Steam to Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead and Arma 3 users. Other games (Take On Helicopters, Arma 2, Arma 2: Free, Arma, Arma: Cold War Assault) will have more limited multiplayer experience with loss of server browser, cd key authentification and NAT traversal systems. That said, direct IP connection to servers should work even after Gamespy services are no longer available."






04:27


Arma 3 Video Review
SEGA, Volition, Rockstar Games, and Namco Bandai began investigating the issue on each of their ends.

EA, Ubisoft, and Capcom did not respond to our requests for comments. Gearbox pointed us to 2K Games, which declined to say anything. We will update this article with any additional information we receive.

You can view the complete list of affected games on GameSpy's tech website.

Comments:

Activision: "Activision won't be affected."

Bohemia: "Yes, we are aware of GameSpy issue and we are very near to [finding] some suitable solution, but I cant tell you more details at the moment."

Capcom: "There are a few titles for which Capcom utilizes GameSpy’s matchmaking services for online gameplay. We are evaluating migration solutions and will have more information in the near future. Please check back on http://www.capcom-unity.com for updates."

Everyone logging packets for the few GameSpy games people still play should do it while they last....especially BF2MC and SWBF2, with the former unlikely to be resurrected due to no public dedis AFAIK.

[chak88]

I am confused gamespy games have been shutdown for awhile now. What is this article actually saying ?

[jacobgrocks]

I am confused gamespy games have been shutdown for awhile now. What is this article actually saying ?

All gamespy games didn't go down, but many did. Now all the others like SWBF2, BF2 (and BF2MC), and Midnight Club 2/3 are going down too.

[chak88]

I am confused gamespy games have been shutdown for awhile now. What is this article actually saying ?

All gamespy games didn't go down, but many did. Now all the others like SWBF2, BF2 (and BF2MC), and Midnight Club 2/3 are going down too.

theoretically they can all be accessed via open spy though ?

[SG-17]

I am confused gamespy games have been shutdown for awhile now. What is this article actually saying ?

All gamespy games didn't go down, but many did. Now all the others like SWBF2, BF2 (and BF2MC), and Midnight Club 2/3 are going down too.

theoretically they can all be accessed via open spy though ?

Yes, but the problem is getting the servers for SWBF2 and BF2MC to also point to OpenSpy. Right now if you use OpenSpy with SWBF2 you can only host and play 4-man rooms.

[Masquarr]

In theory, someone could patch the games' executable files in order to direct them to Openspy rather than Gamespy. (Sort of like what was done with Sniper Elite.) Alternatively, you edit the hosts file, which is located in C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc by default, in order to match up the domain name(/s) that the games use to Openspy's IP Address(/es).

[Viscosity]

I have a dns server that I can redirect to openspy. The problem is that openspy doesn't support account creation. So games like battlefield 2 might seize to work. Battefront II has the option to sign in as a guest so that might still work. If you were to host a dedicated server you would just need to edit your hosts file like masqedwarrior said and point it to openspy.

[lazyhoboguy]

Sucks. I added this to the news section of the site since this is pretty important.

[Artur]

That's quite awful. But doesn't make much of a difference for me. The games I had didn't had any servers left online.

[Bobz1993]

I'll move my DNS2 completely over to OpenSpy when the time comes. It wasn't already this way due to BF2MC being on GameSpy. Probably not much use putting it in the agreement pages because they would already be using it to see that in the first place.