Glu shutting down Gamespy servers across the board

If you played multiplayer games in the early stages of this millenium, you are probably familiar with Gamespy. It offered companies an easy method of integrating multiplayer into their game without setting aside half of their time towards developing networking code. Owned by IGN, you could find Gamespy in multiplayer for games such as Hidden and Dangerous 2, Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2, Star Wars: Battlefront, SWAT 4 and Sniper Elite.


Great multiplayer or greatest multiplayer?

I say 'you could find' because Gamespy is no longer available for any of those titles. First noted by PCGamesN, the service was purchased by Glu in August of this year, and the one-time mobile game publisher has started shutting Gamespy down for games across the board.

This first came to light after a forum post by Rebellion explained why Sniper Elite's Gamespy powered multiplayer was no longer working. The post explained that Glu switched off the multiplayer servers - without talking to Rebellion - and, when Rebellion attempted to get the servers turned back on:

We have been informed that in order to do so would cost us tens of thousands of pounds a year - far in excess of how much we were paying previously. We also do not have the option to take the multiplayer to a different provider. Because the game relies on Glu and Gamespy’s middleware, the entire multiplayer aspect of the game would have to be redeveloped by us, again, at the cost of many tens of thousands of pounds.

At the same time, a Neverwinter Nights player "OldTimeRadio" noticed a similar problem in his game, posting an explanation to the official Bioware forums. Explaining that he is a registered Gamespy Developer, OldTimeRadio said:

Starting sometime as early as October, the people who purchased GameSpy began contacting developers and publishers for games which were part of the GameSpy network, attempting to get them to "re-support" their games. I am assuming this is a euphemism for paying some amount of money. The original GameSpy left a huge number of legacy games on their network and this new outfit has now "conducted an audit" and those games which are "nolonger supported by their publisher" (their verbiage) have been removed.

Since then it has come to light that a lot of Gamespy powered games no longer have simple multiplayer - although determined gamers can get around this through various means, like knowing the IP address or URL of the server you wish to join. Glu are citing lack of publisher support when asked by fans and developers on the official Facebook page. It seems like a pretty crappy situation all around - and another solid argument for developers to release dedicated server software with their games. What do you think about the situation? Is there a Gamespy game you can no longer play because of this? Let us know in the comments below.