EA Closing Multiplayer Servers for 20 Games

The list of twenty affected titles features a number of relatively new titles such as August 2008 release Madden NFL 09--succeeded by August 2009's Madden NFL 10--and November 2008's Facebreaker, as well as some with a few more years under their belts.

"You may continue to play the games online up until these dates," EA explains, "but certain community programs may begin to close down prior to the shutdown dates."

The closures do not necessarily affect all platforms or territories. For example, NBA 07 servers will continue to run for PlayStation 3 after EA shuts down the Xbox 360 and PSP's. Meanwhile, the whole world faces an end to multiplayer NASCAR 09 on PlayStation 2 but only Europe loses the joys of racing around oval tracks on 360 and PS3 too.

This is by no means the first round of EA severs shutdowns, though with thirty-seven editions of twenty games games set to lose multiplayer it is certainly is larger than 2009's, when online support was ended for seventeen editions of eight games in April.

EA warns of servers shutdown on the back of its game boxes, though in small print and perhaps not in the clearest language. "EA may retire online features after 30 days notice posted on www.ea.com," reads the boilerplate warning, with season-based sports games sporting addendums similar to Madden NFL 09's "...or 30 days after the last day of the 2008-2009 NFL season."

"All of us at EA would like to thank you for your valued participation in our online gaming community," a friendly note on the announcement page reads, "and hope that your enthusiasm for these games extends to our current lineup and beyond."

The full list of editions on the chopping block follows below.