EA to shut down a load of old servers

By Ellie Gibson Published 4 January, 2010

What no more Champions League 07?

Electronic Arts has announced plans to shut down a bundle of servers for games no one is playing any more.

As revealed on the EA website, these include Facebreaker, UEFA Champions League 07 and various games based around American sports whose titles begin with N.

The most recently established servers to get the chop are those for Madden 09 and the European servers for NASCAR 09. Those who live in the US will still be able to play the racer online.

The shutdown will take place on 2nd February. Here's that server list in full:

  • UEFA Champions League 07 PC and x360
  • Facebreaker x360 and PS3
  • Fantasy Football 09 x360 and PS3
  • FIFA 07 PSP, PS2, PC
  • Fight Night Round 3 PS2
  • Madden 08 Wii
  • Madden 08 PC
  • Madden 09 Xbox1
  • Madden 09 Wii and PSP
  • March Madness 07 x360
  • NBA 07 PSP, x360
  • NBA 08 PS2, PSP, Wii
  • NBA 09 Wii - Europe only
  • NBA Street (2007) PS3 and x360
  • NCAA Football 08 PS2
  • NCAA Football 09 PS2
  • NASCAR 08 PS2
  • NASCAR 09 PS2
  • NASCAR 09 PS3 and x360 - Europe Only
  • NFL Tour PS3 and x360
  • NHL 07 PSP and x360
  • NHL 08 PC
  • Tiger Woods 07 PC
  • Madden 09 x360 and PS3
  • Madden 07 Xbox 360
Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (30) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • mcmonkeyplc #1 2 years ago

    I guess cause no one plays these?

  • myiagros #2 2 years ago

    Shame about NBA Street, that was quite fun online, but the rest i couldn't care less about.

  • Rirekon #3 2 years ago

    Wait, they're shutting down the '09 servers? That's a bit quick isn't it?

  • Beano #4 2 years ago

    "Wait, they're shutting down the '09 servers? That's a bit quick isn't it? "

    I agree - it seems very cheap by EA to force online players to upgrade to 10 by shutting down the servers. BAH!!

  • oreillymj #5 2 years ago

    Yeh I'm sure no one is still playing Madden 09 in the US.

  • SpaceMidget75 Verified Senior Software Developer, Minerva Computer Services #6 2 years ago

    Madden 09! WTF? Either that's a typo or EA are vying to take the crown back off Activision for being the biggest tossers.

    I thought the majority of 360 games were designed with P2P networking with additional dedicated server support in games like L4D2?

  • Lee_Morris #7 2 years ago

    Very strange for them to be closing the Madden 09 servers. Does that show that a large majority of Madden players move on to the new game every year?

  • chrisjm #8 2 years ago

    what is the xbox sub for then, or do EA do things differently?
    not that i play these games, but there are some on the list that are way before their time - and if almost no one is playing them anymore surely they can just reduce capacity and share a server.

  • Eighthours #9 2 years ago

    Why leave Madden 08? Something screwy going on here.

  • metalangel #10 2 years ago

    There is no NASCAR 10 so that leaves European players scuppered. Just as well I didn't buy that used copy in Blockbuster, I guess. Of course, this is only an issue due to another piece of EA cuntery - having separate versions for North America and Europe which cannot play against each other. Eh?!

  • Murton #11 2 years ago

    I remember reading some time ago that each new addition of Madden sells more copies in the US than FIFA does globally. It's likely that EA's marketing research shows that the vast majority of its key demographic have moved onto Madden 10 thus making the 09 sever redundant. While this is kind of annoying as it reinforces the annual franchise model it is something that needs to be done if EA are to get on top of their server issues, I think everyone knows that EA's multiplayer can be a little ropey at the best of times, if this is what it takes to bring it up to par then I for one support the decision as long as they don't shut down popular titles too soon.

    @Chrisjm: the Xbox LIVE sub is for logging in and leaderboards, very few third party games have their games hosted on LIVE servers because MS charges them a fortune for that. Most games on the 360 and the PS3 for that matter run their multiplayer either P2P or on a publisher owned/licensed server. The only real difference with multiplayer in a third party title between the two consoles is the leaderboard which in my opinion isn't worth the money at all.

  • Kapo! #12 2 years ago

    And to think I was going to buy Madden 09 yesterday. I'm glad I saved my money now.

  • frugtkompot #13 2 years ago

    You guys do realize it's only Madden '09 for XBOX 1 (not 360), Wii and PSP - right?

  • riz23 #14 2 years ago

    It is x360 and PS3. They are second from bottom in the list. Anyway it all seems a strom in a tea cup to me. Who here is playing FIFA09 online for example? Exactly. And I'm sure Madden is the same. And some of those games such as facebreaker are best left forgotten.

  • Inigo #15 2 years ago

    @frugtkompot it says madden 09 for 360 and PS3 at the bottom of the list.

  • fknetwork #16 2 years ago

    This is why I HATE EA running their own servers on xbox live, if they just used xbox live servers they wouldn't shut any down, what EA games are next? when I buy a game I expect it to work online even in two years time, very sad :(

  • jonsaan #17 2 years ago

    Facebreaker is a bit cheeky. It's not even old.

  • metalangel #18 2 years ago

    I would laugh and laugh if they took down BF1943 servers, especially in light of its recent one day deal on XBLA. And cry and cry when they take down Burnout Paradise.

  • drxym #19 2 years ago

    One has to wonder why companies like EA don't use virtualization for this sort of thing. When you think about it, their server farm could host every single game, past & present and fire up VM instances to cope with the demand. If one game is very popular the farm spawns more instances. If a game is not so popular VMs idle and then shut down automatically.There shouldn't be a need to physically take down any servers in such a setup.

  • penhalion #20 2 years ago

    And this folks is precisely why I said that Microsoft should not have allowed EA to have their own servers. It's also why I refused to buy the new army of two after the demo asked me to create an EA account in order to play online. I have no intention of buying an EA game which will become online disabled at the whim of some nameless EA executive. If they had used microsoft servers, then online would work as long as XBox live exists.

    Only regret is that I may now have to skip Deadspace 2.

  • metalangel #21 2 years ago

    I had a nightmare re-attaching my EA account to my Gamertag after one of the Burnout patches somehow caused problems... and until I sorted it (think I had to email their support in the end) I was denied playing with my friends.

  • Markitron #22 2 years ago

    Ill bet Activision shut down the COD4 servers at some point this year to force people to upgrade. That will be amusing.............

  • Murton #23 2 years ago

    Penhalion: may as quit gaming altogether, at least online as no publisher in their right mind would pay the fees MS charge for LIVE hosting of multiplayer games when they already have servers themselves that can be used for all platforms.

    This is a fact of gaming, when games get old their support stops. Obviously with the PC you get community support, fan made patches, private servers and whatnot but for a closed platform like the consoles that simply can't happen and you can only expect to the publishers to keep supporting their titles for as long as it remains profitable to do so. If that means losing support for a game released some 2-3 years ago every time a new one comes out will we really feel the loss?

  • ignatiusjreilly #24 2 years ago

    If that means losing support for a game released some 2-3 years ago every time a new one comes out will we really feel the loss?

    Not if you buy the new version every time, no...

  • chrisjm #25 2 years ago

    facebreaker doesnt have one that you could 'upgrade' to and has only been out for about 15 months.

  • Ced_Flanders #26 2 years ago

    Wow, they made Madden 09 for the original xbox? I've heard of some popular sports games being released for PS2, but this is the first time I've seen a game for xbox1 in a long time.

  • monkfishjoe #27 2 years ago

    "facebreaker doesnt have one that you could 'upgrade' to and has only been out for about 15 months. "

    It's also a bunch of arse...

  • MattyD #28 2 years ago

    EA games are still p2p on the 360, but all the stat tracking and matchmaking is done by EAs own servers. MS was dead set against this precisely because they didn't want games getting turned off, but EA forced a concession out of MS back in the original Xbox days by threatening to stop supporting the machine. The last machine EA didn't support was the Dreamcast, look what happened to that...

  • AHiFi #29 2 years ago

    Regardless of that deal, they should be banned from making any online achievements on Xbox 360.

    EDIT: And trophies for online play on PSN too.
    Edited by 1 at 05/01/10 @ 01:14

  • craziii #30 2 years ago

    sux to be you who play EA games older than 1 year old.