Electronic Arts will be shutting down online services for a number of game titles and platforms, with the final listed closure being on 1 March 2011. The first to leave will be the Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth series. The PC versions of the LotR series were canned on 31 December 2010 and the Xbox 360 version will see shutdown on 11 January.
The LOTR titles are closing because EA’s licensing deal with Middle-earth Enterprises has expired but a host of other EA Sports titles are being closed, apparently because of a lack of players. The Xbox 360, PSP, Wii, PS2, PS3 and PC will all see closures for older sports titles on 8 February 2011. Some games like FIFA 09 (PC, PSP, Wii, PS3, Xbox 360), FIFA Manager 10 (PC) and 2010 FIFA World Cup (PSP, Wii) have not had very much time online compared to older games on the chopping block.
The reason given is that “the EA SPORTS™ games scheduled for shutdown in February and March 2011 represent roughly 1% of all peak online players across all EA titles” and EA will apparently be devoting those resources to more popular titles.
Brett Venter
