GameSpy online services shutting down May 31

Publisher Glu has announced that it will shut down all Gamespy online services on May 31, 2014. The closure of these services stands to affect a large number of games, which use Gamespy for their hosting and matchmaking services.

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Publisher Glu has announced that it will shut down all GameSpy online services on May 31, 2014. The closure of these services stands to affect a large number of games that use GameSpy for their hosting and matchmaking.

"Effective May 31, 2014, GameSpy will cease providing all hosted services for all games still using GameSpy," reads the official statement. (via Gamasutra) "If you have any questions about how this impacts your favorite title please contact the game's publisher for more information. Thanks for a great ride!"

It should be noted that Nintendo utilizes GameSpy for all of its online Wii and Nintendo DS titles, which could be a major factor in why those online services are being dropped later this year. Another major publisher that uses Gamespy for some of its games is Capcom, who notified Game Informer that they would begin seeking migration solutions for the games affected. (Update: Iron Galaxy has stated on Twitter that Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online no longer utilizes GameSpy and will not be affected.) Other GameSpy clients listed include Rockstar, 2K, Namco Bandai, Sega, Konami, Ubisoft, EA, Crytek, and many more.

Glu had previously purchased GameSpy's tech from IGN in August 2012 for $2.7 million.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    April 3, 2014 2:30 PM

    Ozzie Mejia posted a new article, Gamespy online services shutting down May 31.

    Publisher Glu has announced that it will shut down all Gamespy online services on May 31, 2014. The closure of these services stands to affect a large number of games, which use Gamespy for their hosting and matchmaking services.

    • reply
      April 3, 2014 2:33 PM

      I'll wear my Gamespy t-shirt in memoriam

    • reply
      April 3, 2014 2:46 PM

      End of an era.

      • reply
        April 3, 2014 8:58 PM

        My thoughts exactly. I remember Mplayer and then Gamespy as the first real start to matchmaking and multi-player gaming. It would take consoles years to catch up. Brings back many fond memories of late night Quake II gaming sessions.

    • reply
      April 3, 2014 3:05 PM

      bring back the All Seeing Eye

      • reply
        April 3, 2014 3:54 PM

        LoL, wow.. been a LONG time since I've heard that name. :)

      • reply
        April 3, 2014 5:52 PM

        thats been murdered by yahoo. you will never find its mutilated corpse.

        • reply
          April 4, 2014 12:08 AM

          I remember how a lot of people were optimistic about it too. Seemed like a sensible acquisition at the time.

      • reply
        April 3, 2014 9:20 PM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        April 4, 2014 12:06 AM

        I loved that program. My friend and I abused the ability to "friend" or follow players by their in game names in Desert Combat mod because he became a huge whiny bitch because we kept killing him with the Blackhawk using the minigun. Now I was an excellent pilot and my friend became an awesome gunner but one game of Lost Village that dude wouldn't stop typing in chat about how lame, awful, and cheating we were.

        So we tagged his name and ASE showed whenever he was online and playing on what server. So we joined those games and our goal was to seek him out and kill him with a Blackhawk/minigun. Even going as far as if we were the Opposition to steal the Blackhawk and use it on him. The best one was early in our griefing he saw our names and typed, "OMG, it's you guys again! WTF!!"

        I know it was terrible what we did but my Gods it was some of the funniest shit we did in online gaming/griefing.

      • reply
        April 4, 2014 6:59 AM

        [deleted]

    • reply
      April 3, 2014 3:09 PM

      Are their any games that still have a decent player base that use this?

    • reply
      April 3, 2014 3:10 PM

      Nintendo uses Gamespy for their games??? Holy shit! They're even more backwards when it comes to online gaming than I thought.

      • reply
        April 3, 2014 3:40 PM

        For the Wii and DS they did. Not the Wii U or 3DS though.

    • reply
      April 3, 2014 3:13 PM

      So what happens to Unreal Tournament 3? Someone posted this question on Epic's forum last year, and an Epic staffer said, "We're checking into it." http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/940578-If-gamespy-gets-shutdown-what-does-this-mean-for-UT3

      • reply
        April 3, 2014 7:07 PM

        they'll fix it when the Linux version comes out

      • reply
        April 3, 2014 10:14 PM

        The correct response to that question is, "Wait, people play Unreal Tournament 3?"

    • reply
      April 3, 2014 5:43 PM

      So I guess my old version of Quakespy will no longer be supported?

    • reply
      April 3, 2014 5:48 PM

      Whoa.

    • reply
      April 3, 2014 5:55 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      April 3, 2014 6:23 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      April 3, 2014 6:38 PM

      Did they just not update their technology enough or did steam just kill them? Just about every game has multiplayer and I guess they just missed the mobile boat.

    • reply
      April 3, 2014 7:29 PM

      GameRanger developer here. Already support over 600 multiplayer games, many are ex-GameSpy or already had their existing services shut down. Will be working hard to try and keep as many of these games alive and am reaching out to affected developers and publishers. Hate seeing this happen.

      • reply
        April 3, 2014 9:52 PM

        Hail brother, can I donate?

        • reply
          April 3, 2014 10:06 PM

          Woot, signing up for GameRanger! Just looked at the list and a lot of the orphaned games are supported! I'd love like hell to see F.E.A.R. 2 in there, pretty pretty please

          • reply
            April 3, 2014 10:34 PM

            Thanks for the kind words. I'll see what I can do.. that reminds me, I need to get FEAR 1 as well, I still play that every now and then at LAN parties with friends. Got a lot of work ahead of me!

            (Wasn't looking for donations, but your generous thought is appreciated)

      • reply
        April 3, 2014 10:21 PM

        [deleted]

        • reply
          April 3, 2014 10:32 PM

          PC as well since late 2008. Just hit 5 million members last month due to word of mouth! You should see if you still have your original account. :)

      • reply
        April 4, 2014 12:10 AM

        This is awesome, what you're doing is important.

        • reply
          April 4, 2014 12:59 AM

          Thank you, it really means a lot to hear that. It seems to be such a difficult job to convince people (eg. the gaming press) that this should matter. I guess because it's not the new-and-shiny.

          • reply
            April 4, 2014 5:47 AM

            Hey Scott, long long time Game Ranger user here. Do you have an update on the 10.9 compatible version? Just curious, I have been maintaining a 10.8 system for compatibility, hadn't seen anything in the news that suggested when the update might be finished. Keep up the good work!

            • reply
              April 4, 2014 8:03 AM

              I don't have a time frame for it, but it's very next on the list after I finish upgrading the servers to beefy new hardware.

      • reply
        April 4, 2014 5:12 AM

        God bless you.

      • reply
        April 4, 2014 5:49 AM

        GameRanger was the best way I got Terraria to work multiplayer- was easy to use etc. Plus I then saw all the games they support

      • reply
        April 4, 2014 7:15 AM

        Awesome keep up the good work

      • reply
        April 4, 2014 7:34 AM

        Entire Command & Conquer series pls

        • reply
          April 4, 2014 8:02 AM

          Working on it. There are a lot of them. :)

        • reply
          April 4, 2014 9:16 AM

          Second C&C Red Alert 3, I believe the Mac Version (cider wrapped) used GameSpy. I was always able to play cross platform anyway. Support for this on the Mac, and if possible Cross platform would be greatly appreciated.

    • reply
      April 3, 2014 7:39 PM

      Finally. I fucking hated installing Gamespy's crap and all the crap they installed along side it.

    • reply
      April 3, 2014 8:55 PM

      The first Borderlands uses Gamespy. Worst, most buggiest connection client I've ever seen. About the only way you can get a reliable multiplayer game going is to use the LAN option with a VPN. Hardly ideal for a game that emphasizes the multiplayer aspect.

      Who knows, maybe 2k will issue a patch for BL1. Somehow I doubt it though.

      • reply
        April 3, 2014 9:44 PM

        They patched Bioshock 2 to remove GFWL. I won't be surprised if they patch Borderlands.

        • reply
          April 4, 2014 10:24 AM

          Ahh yes I'd forgotten about that. That gives me great hope.

          Say what you will about their design decisions, but 2K does an excellent job of supporting their games.

      • reply
        April 4, 2014 5:49 AM

        We always used Gameranger to connect, the gamespy implementation was damn buggy. It might connect all the players if the Sun, Mars, Neptune, and Planet X were aligned while standing on one leg, on a Tuesday, in Smarch.

        • reply
          April 4, 2014 10:33 AM

          Yeah, for us it was Hamachi, since we were already running it for other reasons. Even with having to use the command line to connect due to Hamachi's non-LAN IPs it was a damn sight easier than winning the lottery and getting the GameSpy client to connect successfully.

      • reply
        April 4, 2014 6:58 AM

        we had to forward ports and all that jazz to get it to work. good times.

      • reply
        April 4, 2014 7:40 AM

        [deleted]

        • reply
          April 4, 2014 8:17 AM

          Nooooope.

        • reply
          April 4, 2014 10:22 AM

          As someone who still plays it, I can assure you its not. I tried playing with a friend recently, only to be reminded that I had to enter my GameSpy ID to connect, which was a ten minute game of "remember what your security questions were 10 years ago." It took my friend about a half hour to even get a GameSpy ID (they live in Europe), and once they did it was impossible for us to see each other, even when we had friended through the GS system and were specifically browsing for friends. In the end my friend had to connect to my network via VPN so we could use LAN mode, which of course worked on the first try.

          Even if 2k doesn't patch Borderlands there won't really be much of a difference to how things are now, since you can't connect via the GameSpy system anyway.

          • reply
            April 4, 2014 10:40 AM

            "Even if 2k doesn't patch Borderlands there won't really be much of a difference to how things are now, since you can't connect via the GameSpy system anyway."

            Lolololololol. Truth. It does work fine with GameRanger (cross platform even).

    • reply
      April 3, 2014 8:57 PM

      This brings me back http://www.gameaholic.com/games/quake/quakeworld/

      • reply
        April 4, 2014 5:30 PM

        you know, it brings a smile to my face the fact that this website is still up and looks exactly the same as it was back then.

    • reply
      April 3, 2014 9:17 PM

      / pours one out for QuakeSpy

    • reply
      April 3, 2014 9:51 PM

      - Halo
      - Unreal Tournament 3
      - F.E.A.R. 2
      - Borderlands
      - AVP
      - AVP2
      - Lots of old Battlefields
      - Lots of old Medal of Honor games
      - Star Wars Battlefront 1 & 2
      - Chaos Theory
      - Double Agent
      - Ghost Recon
      - Advanced Warfighter 1 & 2
      - Crysis & Crysis Warhead

      Damn this is depressing. It really underscores just how important direct LAN play is so important to multiplayer games of any kind. I hated that consoles so typically didn't support it at all, XBox did a stellar job at it then 360 came along and it got swept under the rug. It's almost hard to believe this is happening on the PC platform at all, let alone at this scale.

      What options are there? Tunngle? GameRanger?

      • reply
        April 4, 2014 12:40 AM

        I really liked AvP2 multi.. Does this make me a bad person??

      • reply
        April 4, 2014 10:30 AM

        For consoles, Xlink Kai is still operating it seems. Works for XBox, 360, PS2, PS3, and PSP. Decent enough community, and reasonably easy to get working.

        For PC, Tunngle and GameRanger are indeed the best options. Tunngle is pretty decent for finding people, though their client seems to occasionally lose the ability to make a Class C network (192.168.0.x), which is a problem since a lot of games only scan Class C clients when in LAN mode. Borderlands and Borderlands 2, for example. Drives me nuts since my home is a Class B due to having two separate internet connections. Whenever my brother and I want to do LAN co-op we have to futz around with command lines and crap.

        • reply
          April 4, 2014 10:42 AM

          Oh man, Xlink Kai is still around! I used to play Mario Kart: Double Dash with that back in the day.

          • reply
            April 4, 2014 11:39 AM

            I think the most impressive part of this is that you somehow managed to get your hands on a GameCube Broadband Adapter. Those things were a bit like unicorns back in the day. Not as bad as the Dreamcast Broadband Adapter, but close.

            • reply
              April 7, 2014 4:54 PM

              Luck me I got both and hardly used either.

        • reply
          April 4, 2014 7:23 PM

          I'm well aware of XLink Kai. Been using it for years. But it works by tunneling to fool consoles into thinking they are on the same LAN. Without a LAN mode, it is useless. And it can function for XBox 360, but there are a couple of issues.

          1. The 360 library has much fewer LAN-capable titles than the original XBox, and
          2. Unlike the original XBox, 360's networking will kick you from any host with a ping greater than 33ms. Nothing can be done about this short of jtagging or reset clutching your 360, something a lot of users aren't interested in doing for fear of getting kicked from Live.

          It works great on all the platforms, really, you just need to have a good reliable stable of players for the classic games you want to play, along with working around the above issues. If you just log in and wait for a full lobby of your favorite golden oldie, you just may fall asleep first if it isn't Halo or something equally popular.

    • reply
      April 3, 2014 11:11 PM

      [deleted]

      • P90 legacy 10 years
        reply
        April 4, 2014 12:27 AM

        MechWarrior Online doesn't use Gamespy.

    • reply
      April 4, 2014 1:02 AM

      I remember Neverwinter Nights multiplayer with fondness, and it worked through Gamespy :/

      Here's hoping a solution will be available, for both NWN 1 & 2.

      • reply
        April 4, 2014 5:49 AM

        I believe NWN is supported by Gameranger.

    • reply
      April 4, 2014 7:32 AM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      April 4, 2014 8:32 AM

      The only reason I'm here at this dumb website is because Gamespy's queues for downloading patches was way too long.

      • reply
        April 4, 2014 9:10 AM

        Haha, I always assumed those FilePlanet queues were artificially inflated.

    • reply
      April 5, 2014 9:52 PM

      The real reason why Nintendo's old Wii and DS online service is going down...

      Such a shame... have to try to play Mario Kart Wii with some buddies still one more time before it shuts down forever.

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