EA have announced plans to shut down servers for some of its online games in August, reports thesixthaxis . Though 17 servers in total will be switched off the only PC servers facing closure are those for Need for Speed: Most Wanted and the Battlefield 2142 demo.

The publisher cited low player numbers as the reason for shutting the servers down, saying the games were played by "Fewer than 1% of all peak online players across all EA titles." GameRanger, whose service frequently provides a home for games without server support, disagreed.

“GameRanger added multiplayer support for Need for Speed: Most Wanted on April 7, in anticipation of these shutdowns. There are about 5,000 multiplayer games of NFS:MW played each day on GameRanger now,” said Scott Kevill, speaking to VG247 . “There will be a thriving community waiting. This won't help the console players, but will at least help the PC players given that Need For Speed: Most Wanted is still quite popular.”

GameRanger recently offered support for Codemaster's GRID after the publishers shut down their servers.