EA earlier pulled back online services on many of its widely played titles around this time last year. The shutdown once again impends for various games that has been published by the company, most of them being squared predecessors of widely-played sports simulation titles.
Moreover, EA has also announced the culmination of their deal with Middle-earth Enterprises which forces retirement of the online services for The Lord of the Rings games. This contract expiration will lead to closing of The Battle for Middle-earth II as well The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II: The Rise of the Witch-king for Xbox 360 from January 11, 2011. Whereas services for the PC version of The Battle for Middle-earth and the previous two titles have already concluded.
“Despite some people’s perception, there is a lot of behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping these older games up and running. We would rather our hard-working engineering and IT staff focus on keeping a positive experience for the other 99% of customers playing our more popular games,” EA stated.
Another of the company’s product offerings, The Sims Carnival will also meet a closure on January 17, 2011. Any player-created content in the game or on the website will no longer be available for access thereafter. According to the company, the games that it has decided to withdraw online services for ‘represent roughly 1% of all peak online players across all EA titles’.
Further shutdowns beginning February 8, 2011 include FIFA 09 for PC, PlayStation Portable, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii, EA Sports Fight Night Round 3 for PS3 and Xbox 360, NCAA Basketball 09 for PS3 and Xbox 360 as well as NCAA Football 10 for PlayStation 2. Additionally, neither 2010 FIFA World Cup for PlayStation Portable and Wii, nor its demo will be available after the aforementioned date.