the company that killed off hundreds of games in a single day...

[@scoutdy6547]

This is why modern games having such closed infrastructures scares me. One day a game you spent 100 if not thousands of hours on could be gone just like that. But not just time, but money, if games shut down, all that money fucking burns

[@Sammysapphira]

It's profoundly hilarious when a single player gacha game that people have spend tens of thousands on goes offline and you can't even access the game anymore when it amounted to the complexity of a flash game with no multiplayer capability. It should be illegal to design games that cannot be played without full server support. Loss of media and such.

[@moonasha]

yep. It took around ~12 years for community devs to get vanilla WoW into a good state where we can say it's permanently archived for history no matter what blizzard does, and that's with an insanely passionate community spending 1000s of hours creating databases and coding. One can only imagine how many games with less people behind them will just disappear entirely. I feel like it should be a law that when a game shuts down, the company has to release their server code. Especially for MMOs, like 70% of what makes it a game is on those servers.

[@Mr_Tea_Rexx]

yep happened to me with firefall they need the option to create your own dedicated servers. Would fix so many of these problems

[@Cruxis_Angel]

Happened to me with OW. OW2 is nothing like the original and I can’t play one of my favorite games anymore

[@link_team3855]

does make me glad with games like Minecraft, where if you want to host a server you need to download the server software for either linux or windows... and then just portforward. thats it. Can do more to the server if you want like plugins or mod, but at this point you allready have a functional server. Tis cool. Surprising amount of steam games have dedicated servers too, check whats in the 'tools' list lol. Filled with dedicated server software (... really just 'server' instead of 'client' version of the game) and even modding tools.

[@ShadoSpartan44]

that's crazy, glu either had no idea just how much power they had in the multiplayer landscape or they thought they could make so much more money by threaten to take it all down, and the gaming companies were like well i guess all our old games won't have multiplayer. So that's on glu for ruining a great opportunity for them

[@enemy1191]

probably nr 2

[@nicholasbrooks7349]

​@@enemy1191Probably not seems pretty far fetched, glu isn't stupid they know most big game companies don't give a flying f about their old games multiplayer, not even smaller studios that care would work since they probably don't have enough money.

[@RealHellession]

Glu isn't the innocent company you may think it is. Look up the story of QuizUp - a trivia mobile game that was acquired and milked dry for money by Glu Mobile. Big rabbit hole... if there is still info about it, as Glu proceeded to shut down this online mobile game and now almost no information remains other than journo articles

[@shadowmaster335]

i am just like "why buy a company that solely provides multiplayer functions, to then shut down said services"

[@NorthStarBlue1]

I think glu also didn;t quite realize just how expensive it would be to maintain servers for all these games that had small but dedicated communities. Being primarily a mobile company they specialize in games that are meant to be disposable and shut down after a year or two, and it costs the same to keep a server open regardless of whether it has 1000 or 10 users.

[@ross3695_basedhax]

The good thing about gamespy games is that it was P2P So many of the games were easily revived, like Mario Kart Wii which has thousands of players daily 10 years after it shut down running on one server for free

[@derpderpin1568]

THUG Pro, which is actually better than any of the original THPS games by miles and came as a direct result of the old servers shutting down.

[@runakovacs4759]

Yep! Sometimes we even managed to turn it into an entirely new thing. Like, for Neverwinter Nights 2- a bit of dll injection and boom, new server browser

[@Klaaism]

Even the Battlefield stuff was revived multiple times, EA just shat all over it.

[@brahtrumpwonbigly7309]

makes you wonder why they made it seem like developing a work around was going to be so labor intensive and therefore expensive.

[@ZiddersRooFurry]

@@brahtrumpwonbigly7309 Money. They want people to think their additional service is both necessary and worth money as they consider it a 'value added product'. A product that makes their game more valuable to players meaning people are more likely to buy it and pay a lot for it.

[@MyHaloForges]

Halo CE and Halo Custom Edition had a surprise patch update from Bungie so today in 2024, you can still find servers without GameSpy as long as you download the patch along with the game itself.

[@camilorodriguez5602]

where can i find the patch?

[@t3hp0larbear]

​@@camilorodriguez5602 Do a search for Halo PC patch 1.10. There's a Bungie forum post by Roger Wolfson that has links to patches for both Combat Evolved and Custom Edition.

[@Akispark]

Gotta love proper game preservation supported by the creators

[@jordan8199]

I was a big fan of the gamespy podcast that ended up becoming the comedy button years later and watching this all slowly happen in real time with insider insight was honestly such a strange experience. You could tell the people at the top of gamespy knew it was over the second they got acquired and IGN made it clear internally what their intentions with the IP, staff, and industry connections they acquired were. Gamespy was always a weird, poorly run, company but they were so integral to early internet gaming and most people just have no idea. Really glad someone made such a great video on this.

[@yeahrightgetreal]

Gamespy was one of those wierd time capsule things, fond memories but largely forgotten about nowadays.

[@asciicatface]

If any body's interested in listening to it, the podcast is called "The Gamespy Debriefings" and is fully available on the Internet Archive.

[@tejay9416]

@@yeahrightgetreal Fond is a hilarious word, thats like having fond memories of an abusive spouse, I have such fond memories of when they used to smack me around 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@WarFoxThunder]

​@@yeahrightgetrealFR

[@jordan8199]

@@asciicatface If you don't listen to the 2 hour episode that is actually a 30 minute episode where Scott has to leave early, smacks the recording device, and causes it to loop the last 5 minutes for an hour and a half, you aren't a real fan.

[@jomanaitor]

some kind of law should be passed that if you close the servers for an specific game you're forced to release to the public the server software and instructions on how to put it working,so people can continue what the company stopped doing.

[@TwoPlusTwoEqualsFive32]

They can't even force car/tractor manufacturers to do this and the stakes are much higher then losing a game. Farmers can lose a $300,000 tractor overnight as the manufacturers refuse to release the diagnosis software to third party repairers but are also refusing to do the repairs themselves or are charging exorbitant amounts that bankrupt entire farms.

[@ostlandr]

Then there are the people who believe that if our distant ancestors had dog-piled and ended the existence of the first proto-human who expressed the concept "There ought to be a law", we would live in a very different society today. As Thomas Jefferson said, we forge our own chains.

[@KairiMorin]

I agree.

[@ABurntMuffin]

@@ostlandr yeah fuck that first guy who said "yo I'll help you defend your shit from those other monkeys over there if you do the same for me," return to monke.

[@raresandrei7205]

@@TwoPlusTwoEqualsFive32 welcome to America. EU still has a chance to implement such regulations tough

[@Idontgiveafinnuck]

"Dear humanity, we regret being alien bastards, we regret coming to Earth, and we most definitely regret that the Corps just blew up our raggedy-ass fleet!"

[@howtowithjkl6246]

HOORAHH

[@cosmicbrambleclawv2]

HOOAH

[@desko2041]

@@Drew-v2fwhat

[@Merkantoine]

For a brick, he flew pretty good.

[@Idontgiveafinnuck]

@@Merkantoine Crazy fool. Why do you always jump?! One of these days, you're gonna land on something as stubborn as you are! And I don't do bits and pieces.

[@zivunknown]

I remember an old sysadmin story about a server everyone was looking for, but no one knew the whereabouts, which turned out to be inside a small room that was walled off during renovation work and that everyone forgot about.

[@TwoPlusTwoEqualsFive32]

I have a similar story at my company, a while ago the company was bought out and they decided to fire the one and only I.T guy without notice after 15 years of working there. Problem is the systems were a convoluted maze held together with duct tape and hopes and dreams that only the I.T guy knew his way around. So they were forced to either completely re-create the system which would have bankrupted them, or to go to the guy they just sacked and beg him to return as a contractor to teach the new guy. He ended up charging them over 500k to sub-contract him back for a month to teach the new guy. Upper management are not known for making good decisions in most cases.

[@neglectfulsausage7689]

It was behind the blockbuster that was closed down due to a triple murder, and the ghosts still haunt the server room to this day.

[@jessikapiche6097]

@@TwoPlusTwoEqualsFive32 I would have only returned if the upper management were fired too. That would have teach them a lesson.

[@myoak108]

@@TwoPlusTwoEqualsFive32 That's honestly a pretty great idea if you find yourself as the sole technican of any sort, be it mechanical or otherwise. Just get by enough until they try to lay you off they'll realize you're the only support that department has from total collapse. Should at least be a bargaining chip as for why you're unreplaceable lol

[@37Kilo2]

GameSpy and All Seeing Eye were required installs after formatting my drive, or building a new PC back in the day. That logo is iconic.

[@MetalFalcon99]

My dad still has the software on his laptop

[@belstar1128]

yup game spy flash java every time

[@ChucksSEADnDEAD]

The ritual of installing GameSpy, xfire, CCCP codec pack, PowerISO, etc on new system drives/after formatting was something else.

[@GoldSrc_]

I had forgotten about the All Seeing Eye, that's a blast from the past.

[@marksnethkamp8633]

​@@GoldSrc_ ASE still works on many games that GS took down.

[@Chloroxite]

The NightFire PC Port was bad because it wasn't NightFire. They just straight-up made an entire new game in the GldSrc engine

[@Arcademan09]

Was it a completely different game?

[@xyzz8722]

​@@Arcademan09was using half life engine for pc.

[@Jjz0289]

​@@Arcademan09 yeah any vehicle or on rail levels which come to think about it was 40% of the original game were completely removed from the pc port

[@Arcademan09]

@@xyzz8722 I thought that footage looked familiar, the physics at least lol

[@belstar1128]

yea pc had a different architecture from consoles back then so porting was not easy. you can see this in a lot of even older retro games where every port is totally different

[@MimiWhiskers]

Its very frustrating when they release old games and remove all the multiplayer just because it had that Gamespy stuff in it. But doing so they take out the Lan functionality that works just fine!

[@xlicer]

cof cof gta IV cof cof

[@doltBmB]

@@xlicer gta 4 was gfwl not gamespy

[@xlicer]

@@doltBmBoups my bad

[@ross3695_basedhax]

Nintendo never bothered to fix it in the VC ports when emulators have online

[@ross3695_basedhax]

@doltBmB gfwl was just the launcher. The matchmaking did use gamespy, but they changed it When gfwl stopped working they just didn't bother to fix login but the consoles still work

[@yazan4267]

37:09 thay shutdown all the cod servers on the wii on July 31 of 2023 without any announcement and if you try to go online with bypasser on mw3 or bo1 a massage appear saying "The black ops (or MW3) online service for this software has been discontinued. Thank you for playing." Other games will show you an error message

[@Calvin_Coolage]

That's probably because Activision had made the decision to shut them down.

[@timbo303official9]

I cant believe the servers even lasted past covid

[@shunakiyama6421]

​@@Calvin_Coolage It's shut down on Nintendo's end. Wii CoDs used nintendo login servers, and atvi game servers, and nintendo shut off the login servers meaning that the game servers are still up, we just cant play them

[@timbo303official9]

@@shunakiyama6421 that didnt matter too much since homebrewing your wii had no risks and was the easiest thing besides a psp.

[@johnm9263]

it is actually illegal for glu to have done such a thing, but in order for anything to happen, it has to be litigated, and if glu cant run the servers due to lack of funding, that could also stop the companies who want to sue from getting what they want anyways the illegality of it has to do with: 1. how abrupt it was 2. the time of notification or lack thereof 3. the new terms being universally infeasible 4. the refusal to allow migration to a new service

[@ripleyhrgiger4669]

It's not illegal. IT's a private service with it's own terms and conditions. I bet you think it's illegal if you're banned from Steam and can no longer access your library of games. But it's not. Read through the terms of service before clicking "accept."

[@SertFilzon]

The terms of service do not go above the law just because you agreed to them.

[@johnm9263]

@@ripleyhrgiger4669 just because its written down in a contract, doesn't mean its legal There are plenty of contracts that hav successfully been reversed by the fact that they have illegal requirements. One of the things is that a company buying another HAS to honor ANY existing and outstanding offerings that are active Such as a lifetime supply of ice cream, or a permanent discount, or lifetime free travel voucher You have no idea what you're talking about if you dont even acknowledge that the laws exist, unless they conveniently support your point, and only then do you recognize their existence The difference between intentionally doing something malicious, and getting banned, or a service deciding to renege is apples and oranges Even then, if steam shuts down my account and they have no reason to, i can still sue them... BECAUSE ITS ILLEGAL They also would have to prove that if i had been talking about something and its only now an issue, that they were taking action And if they delete or refuse to admit evidence, that in and of itself is illegal in court, federally

[@evodiscogc3422]

@@ripleyhrgiger4669 contracts that are agreed to have been deemed not able to be legally upheld many many times lmfao. your agreement does not mean anything in many cases. you could sign a contract agreeing to enslave yourself. that contract would be used as toilet paper by the court.

[@BrassBrutal]

RIP Gamespy, to me you died years ago but it was always nice to see the logo. Thanks for the memories.

[@ripleyhrgiger4669]

They did die years ago. About 30 years ago.

[@zombl337og]

i remember realizing how much Gamespy was implemented in games when they shut down their servers.........realizing a chunk of my childhood was inaccessible ;(

[@Sheftyyy]

I remember when the announcement came out regarding Gamespy shutting down leading to the Halo CE servers shutting down. Those of us using Xfire at the time were blowing each other up about it lol. I had about 8k hours logged on that game according to Xfire, and it was an important part of my childhood. Made a lot of friends that i still chat with today through different halo clans and pubbing on HCE servers back then. I actually started a petition to try and raise awareness to Bungie offering the idea of a master server update or migrating to Steam. I have no idea if it made any difference, but it accumulated 17.5k signatures, which I thought was pretty cool. It's still findable on the website

[@mar_speedman]

Well according to someone else Bungie did release a patch migrating out of GameSpy, so maybe you did help

[@carlizancho2]

What's the website?

[@Sheftyyy]

Adopt Halo: Combat Evolved & Custom Edition Multiplayer is the name of the petition@@carlizancho2

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

I remember X-Fire.

[@Sheftyyy]

@@carlizancho2 Change. KZbin is removing all my links

[@J.C136]

As much as I love that these games are being saved, discord is possibly the worst place to run a community like this, basically every one of these servers I’ve joined has newcomers constantly asking the same questions that aren’t in the FAQ channel & the oldheads get mad at them for “not using the search” even tho discord’s search function is mid at the best of times

[@hn-03tfharrier98]

Every public facing discord I've ever been in is like this. I miss forums.

[@belstar1128]

yea and a lot of spam and other things you don't want to deal with

[@adeadfishdied]

Skip the search issues, focus on the literal topic. Discord is a live service. They’re hosting “How to work around a deceased live service” on a live service. Discord will eventually go the route of GameSpy, taking all of that knowledge with it.

[@Elite7555]

It's really ironic that discord appears to be the worst place to actually manage a community.

[@manmadeaids]

It seems hard to get forums going. Everyone stays in these internet ghettos metaphorically speaking like KZbin, facebook, discord, instagram, tik tok etc…

[@D-FENS_]

Ill never forget the demonic voice as you start connecting to a server "Let's get on with the killing"

[@uss_04]

My childhood removed in a snap. Reduced to atoms

[@LegioXXI]

The biggest lesson is to never be too dependent on online services... especially from big companies...

[@ChucksSEADnDEAD]

"I lost 30,000 games in the blink of an eye... and the world just fuckin' watched"

[@judge_dreddpool7593]

​​@@ChucksSEADnDEAD "Tomorrow, there'll be no shortage of volunteers... no shortage of gamers. I know you understand."

[@myoak108]

What was it before if it wasn't atoms?

[@felipezorro4893]

Feel U brovh

[@cericat]

The idea the server has just been lost in the stack is far from farfetched, we had a server running for years after the owner was fired, every so often it'd go down and he'd call a friend still there to give it a kick in the guts, sadly after his death it was completely gone. It's entirely possible in the Activision server case it's just a subsystem of the overall matchmaking so won't die until they kill all the matchmaking for that particular game/series. Essentially they're so cheap it's working in the favour of the Wii players. PSO is still running thanks to private servers like a lot of "dead" MMOs.

[@8BitSamurai]

Trying to relive the Brawl online experience is like being nostalgic for a particularly bad splinter

[@jodofe4879]

Ah, the early days of the internet. When you could name a company "Spy Software" and no one would bat an eye at it.

[@GmNdWtchr96]

Wiim-fi isn't an acronym, it's just pronounced "weem-fi."

[@FollowMe4REP]

If anything, it’s a portmanteau.

[@Creed5.56]

Man, if GTA V online was on GameSpy there’s a chance we would already have GTA 6

[@ross3695_basedhax]

Funny how GTA 4 was on gamespy but still works, then GTA 5 doesn't anymore on old gen

[@williamhaynes7089]

@@ross3695_basedhax - there are pc based servers for IV.. also for V too.. even if R* shut down the pc players can connect forever

[@noodlez7101]

even if it did use GameSpy they would’ve just released an update that would use their own or the platform’s network infrastructure instead.

[@skinbreaker6989]

@@ross3695_basedhaxto force push people to the next Gen version and fill rockstars pockets even more milking the same game

[@ross3695_basedhax]

@@skinbreaker6989 and 2k does the same thing with sports games(also a Rockstar company) WWE 2K22 is shut down already, but Smackdown 2007 is still up lmao

[@LostMyR8]

One of Midnight Club LA's most OP cars, the Audi R8, couldn't be unlocked on Xbox 360/PS3 via legit ways without GameSpy's servers. This reason is why it's my favorite car just surpassing the 1957 Bel Air. Note: The Audi R8 can be unlocked on the PSP version while being completely offline.

[@LloydTheZephyrian]

Is it not possible to get it at all on the Xbox version? Multiplayer still works on Xbox.

[@noaharkadedelgado]

@@LloydTheZephyriannot sure, but it leaves me intrigued. Hopefully a search engine can come through haha

[@FollowMe4REP]

So now only the PSP version is canonical to Final Fantasy XV.

[@Noxx55]

The one that hit me hardest was Alien vs Predator 2 (2002) multiplayer shutting down with Gamespy. It was a blast and I miss it daily, there is still nothing like it.

[@HowslyOfficial]

Used to play that through tunngle and other such apps. Unfortunately they are all shut down now.

[@walternelson2687]

Nothing matches the feeling of managing to eat enough people to turn into a Xenomorph Queen, getting stuck in a building because you're too big for the doors now and then deleting any one unfortunate or stupid enough to enter said building.

[@dany_fg]

this is why, as a programmer, I try to use as few third party platforms as possible. I mostly develop web apps, but the same rule applies, I will use a platform only for hosting the program and not a platform that *is* the program.

[@k1r5ch16]

you also have to talk about DRMs, if those shut down the same problem arises

[@LetrixAR]

The DRM can easily be removed. They aren't an integral part of the game (or shouldn't be)

[@shade221]

@@LetrixAR not all DRM can be easily removed. see: the newest versions of denuvo that result in most PC games using them uncracked for years.

[@jukeboxfandango]

The biggest tragedy was the loss of C&C Renegade. It was easily my favorite FPS ever, and when it migrated to GameSpy it got so much better because they allowed for massive servers without time limits. We'd have battles going for 3 straight days sometimes. Nothing was better than massing tanks on Hourglass for like an hour, then rolling over the top of the hill with 16 tanks just to find....16 enemy tanks doing the exact same thing at the exact same time. God I miss Renegade. Some people tried to revive it with Renegade X, but it was never the same.

[@IBRA360HIMYT]

to play halo ce custom edition online you have to download patch 1.10 then update the game and perss refresh in the server browser i hope this helped

[@derpderpin1568]

by far the worst possible version of Halo 1 to play

[@V1VISECT6]

​@@derpderpin1568thats anniversary edditon. Sorry we got to play Halo online a year before you did with Halo 2. Yea the PC version was rough (both were honstley considering I was on the Halo 2 Windows XP hack team). Also sorry to break it to ya. There were much better FPS games before Halo came out. Halo streamlined shit and devs followed suit and thus lost creativity. The world is you're oyster. I'm just living in it.

[@IBRA360HIMYT]

@@derpderpin1568 nah when you download the chimrea addon and find a server with custom maps playlist it becomes one of gaming greatest online experiences

[@mohwe1007]

Custom Edition and Project Cartographer came along

[@IBRA360HIMYT]

@@mohwe1007 project cartographer is less modable then custom edition

[@jimbryant2157]

I remember GameSpy at the very beginning (I too used it for matchmaking, mods and VOIP). I had a friend who used to work there and one day we were playing Battlefield 2142 and bumped into a couple of cheaters. After they killed/healed him a few times (one did the killing and the other healed my friend - rinse and repeat), he exited the game and accessed the GameSpy tools he had available to deal with cheaters - while the two cheaters turned their attention to me! First he reset their experience to zero and after they continued to give him sh*t, he then banned their account. Good times!

[@everythingpony]

Like world's adrift, they said it was "too complicated" for us to run solo servers so they just threw it all away

[@RayvenTheNight]

This is the kinda stuff that worries me today with more and more games and systems pushing for digital only. Disks now are many just the license and you still have to download the rest of it. What happens 20 years from now? It will be that even though you have the disk, you still wont be able to just load it up and play it... this stuff really worries me.

[@daemonflayer]

This is why I've pretty much switched to buying games from GOG, making a point to download the standalone installers (just in case Galaxy ends), and backing them up.

[@RandomGuy0400]

Many of the EULA agreements you have to agree to in order to access the game at all also include a clause basically saying that the company/publisher can pretty much just take your license and ability to use the game at any time and basically lock you out of the game for some reasons... So there are some games that'll just try and uninstall themselves if you attempt to access them after your license has been revoked... Another thing that pains me is that a lot of old games are incompatible with modern hardware, for example, the original Marathon... (Although emulators do exist, but not everything has one)

[@Fallout3131]

Yup; that’s why steam is scary. One bad day or whatever reason, but your entire library can just go poof.

[@Cookiemaster98_98]

Midnight club services ending hurted so bad, bcus i love that series

[@MegaXboxgeeks]

Your pivot from Halo was so natural and you know make some of the best content on KZbin. Normally when channels pivot focus I bail but you nailed it

[@JessicaFEREM]

the interesting thing about nintendo netcode is that the only game nintendo has ever made with proper rollback is arms, a game that nobody plays.... they should bring the arms netcode to smash.

[@V1VISECT6]

Planet Quake also reminds me of the old Planet Descent site. Descent was awesome back in the day and was the first fully 3d FPS also allowing 6 degrees of movement not too long after Doom hit the market. I wish more people talked about Descent.

[@JonOfRiverFalls]

Did you play multiplayer on Kali or Khan? If so, we probably played against one another, as I was addicted to D2. Either way, hail, Material Defender!

[@V1VISECT6]

@@JonOfRiverFalls I used to play through ipx and dial up back then which wasn't often and I'd get smoked when I did. I mostly just played the campaigns and custom mission packs on both D1 and D2. I didn't really get into online games until I played CS in its infatcy. I was rather late to the Quake scene. iD really neglects Quake.

[@filanfyretracker]

Descent 2 had an amazing soundtrack and I think was one of the earliest games to use CD Audio. Now imagine my confusion in the 2000s when I see the trailer for a movie called Descent and it has nothing to do with shooting robots in mines. I even had a mining ship in EVE-Online called "Material Defender".

[@tinypopura]

Descent will always be one of my favorites. There's just no other game like it. There are hundreds of Doom clones, but nothing can be Descent. Though it does have a spiritual successor called Overload, made by former members of Parallax.

[@ReallyIntoxicated]

RIP Original Star Wars Battlefront servers. RIP Star Wars Empire at War servers. RIP Empire Earth servers. RIP all the good fucking games we used to play that was on GameSpy.

[@freemysoul123]

Original Star Wars Battlefront servers.... Excuse me as I rush over to Battlefront 2.

[@derechtepurkus]

Well Star Wars Empire at War got actually fixed after the GameSpy servers died (even tho its extremly old), so big big props to to Petroglyph for keeping my fav game alive

[@Darth001]

Steam put the OG battlefront 2 servers back online years ago on there service just not the 1st one

[@limeanimates]

Mario Kart Wii :(

[@ColdOsburn]

it sounds like they were trying to Blackmail people to get the servers back up and running and when they realize they can't do it they just removed everything

[@cWalkerTHPS]

yup

[@TrulyGodsGoofiest]

I forgot that GameSpy was even a thing lol. But yeah, I remember seeing the logo in games.

[@the_Dark_Phantom]

I distinctly remember this event happening with the first two Battlefronts. We spent years hunting down alternatives until a few generous members created an alternative solution. Until Steam released both games and added GOG Galaxy support, it was the only option for a while.

[@Goat0423]

Only a mobile game company could be dumb enough to be offered Nintendo money for absolutely nothing and say “Nah, I think I’ll just keep making mobile slop instead.”

[@conorjohn490]

Here's a chuckle for you: 2 years ago Glu Mobile was acquired by ...drum roll... Electronic Arts

[@noodlez7101]

I never got to play one of my childhood games online: Full Auto 2 Battlelines Despite me playing the demo version a whole bunch, it never once crossed my mind that I would really have fun playing the game in the proper way, as I often messed around playing the demo version when I was younger. Now I’m wondering what the actual online mode was like, but since it uses GameSpy for its online infrastructure, that thought is dead in the water. There is OpenSpy, but I still haven’t gotten the online mode to work after patching it. It could be that I just patched it poorly.

[@sunso1991]

There should be a law that if some software becomes unsupported should be fully released to public as open-source.

[@crazyfloof]

The only country that would be willing to do that would be EU, i dont see it coming to us anytime soon at all

[@HorsesArePeople2]

Kinda funny how we used to have to post on forums in order to get a server going and now we're posting discords trying to get servers going

[@erubianwarlord8208]

history doesnt always repeat but if often rhymes

[@AtreidaeChibiko]

I still remember the epic "welcome to GameSpy!" Every time I fired it up to play Q2/HL (before steam)

[@HowVeryInterestingYT]

I guess the whole rationale is "if it doesn't happen to my game then I don't care" is abundant. Games as a service has worried me for many years. As an older gamer I can still use ROMS and emulators to play my favourite childhood games. My son doesn't have the same ability as far as all the games he plays online are "games as a service". What I absolutely love is the die hard fans are keeping their favourite game alive and are finding work arounds to ensure their game lives. I absolutely love gamers ingenuity and hope my son takes a leaf out of their book when he's my age to keep his favourite games he is enjoying now in his childhood alive.

[@COMMANDandConquer199]

What was Glu's buisness idea even? "Lets buy an online video game server hosting service and then shut it all down, we'll make soooo much money!" Like what the fuck was the goal there?

[@Rocksite1]

Sorta funny, in the usual sick, sad way. that a British company maned Glu acquired rights to Gamespy, and arbitrarily terminated access for hard-coded, built-in multiplayer capabilities for hundreds of games; without warning, or reasonable paid options. Guess they were "stuck."

[@glitchhunter09]

The Elder scrolls III Morrowind was one of the lucky ones. Up until recently, most of the mods got moved to Morrowind modding history or nexus. That being said, there are still some mods that wound up lost to time. Morrowind modding history went down last year, but most of the mods stored on it are archived thankfully.

[@ohmygoditisspider7953]

there are so, so many that were lost to time when i last looked. i suppose at this point there's nothing i remember that would be better than what's available now.

[@iso-didact789]

@@ohmygoditisspider7953 That or got removed by fucksus clods for bullshit copyright reasons or political correctness.😡

[@glitchhunter09]

@@iso-didact789 Abot's website has links to all the archived pages of morrowind modding history. However, many mods were lost back in the day.when gamespy went down. but yeah Nexus is pretty PC so I wouldn't be surprised if some got removed on there.

[@Mud-Brain]

42:30 So, there were 7 games that used the ethernet port, as far as I'm aware, and only 4 of them used it for online functionality. Of those 4 games, only three were released in America, and they're all Phantasy Star Online. Episodes 1 & 2, Episodes 1 & 2 + (the revised edition with bug fixes), and Episode 3, which was a card-based rpg. The japanese exclusive title was called Homeland, which is a bit of a rabbithole I haven't delved into yet. The other 3 games that used the ethernet port were Kirby Air Ride, Mario Kart Double Dash, and 1080 Avalanche, all for LAN play. Which, in retrospect, is even more wild than the idea of online functionality. I'd love to see a GameCube LAN party, all those purple lunch boxes daisy chained and hooked up to CRTs.

[@TheVideogamemaster9]

Tony Hawk's Underground 2's ThugPro mod uses openspy, with no extra setup necessary

[@cWalkerTHPS]

💯

[@SgtRamen69]

Rip the old Halo:CE trial servers on Blood Gulch, you made my childhood 😢

[@RandomGuy0400]

You ever wonder why we're here?

[@benlogicfactsshapiro]

Not surprised this happened at all. These games are ancient and don’t make much money at all, if any, for these companies anymore. This is why I advocate for physical games with server browsers so fans can take control. If you let someone do all the work you also give them all the power.

[@RandomGuy0400]

Exactly why companies don't like doing that; they like to keep all the power... Every person playing an old game that isn't making any money is a person that could instead buy a new game designed to squeeze as much money from you as possible...

[@JustAllinOneResource]

It is pathetic how one company can hold the key to ever playing them again. This is why it's imperative that all games be allowed to be played offline without an internet connection.

[@breakuptap]

Rember played the games c&c rts and tony hawks 3 online! On gamespy Was a huge experience.

[@sauce773]

I miss Gotham City Imposters when it was at its peak 😢. It was fun

[@judgedrekk2981]

of all the games seriously? a lame Batman themes team fortress 2?? ugh whatever

[@deejorno]

​@@judgedrekk2981did your trenchcoat come in the mail today bud

[@belikezack]

Just because you didn't like it doesn't make it "lame" as whole lol. I as well as MANY other people had so much fun on GC Imposters@@judgedrekk2981

[@Poodleinacan]

​@@judgedrekk2981lmao

[@roberthenry6910]

​@@judgedrekk2981You clearly never played it. Very unique feeling and fun arena game

[@daryljenkins4391]

This is why all games on PC need to have private server connection means that do not rely on connecting to a match making server.

[@hbdragon88]

Nintendo WFC wasn't the greatest but it deserved far better than eight years. RIP to the times of people wanting Level 9 Dialga on the GTS.

[@timbo303official9]

Those level 1-10 legendarys aint an issue on current gts luckily since you cant ask for impossible legendaries now. But that doesnt include the furfurou thats not available yet. I remember when this was an issue Also why the heck did they only support wep the worst security to use nowadays. Wpa was out during the ds and only took them until gen 5 to fix that if you had a dsi which I didnt have. When i got the 3ds i finally had access.

[@hbdragon88]

@@timbo303official9 yeah it was such a joke and made it impossible to search any GTS listings at least early on as those would show up first. as for encryption, WPA was released in 2003, but the NDS was released in November 2004. I don't know the precise timelines for the certification process but I'm guessing there just wasn't time to put it in. The Wii (2006) does support WPA/WPA2. The DS Lite really didn't upgrade the internal hardware at all so it wasn't until the DSI that they got a chance to add WPA/WPA2.

[@edge4266]

the subtle use of Deep Stone Lullaby when you talked about the gamespy servers starting to go down in 2012 was very tasteful

[@nehemiahpouncey3607]

Ah gamespy remember them. They use to also come with every PC game as well.

[@kabobawsome]

For all of the horrid things that happened as a result of this, Rebellion's initial statement about GameSpy shutting off their service with no notice is really really sad. You could tell that really came from someone's heart, likely written with input from the original developers of the game. You can feel that they really really wanted to do something to prevent this. Hell, they *tried* to prevent it, every option was just way too expensive to be practical. It just comes with this real, genuine sadness at being forced to let it die.

[@StruggleBoxing]

a company named GameSpy was doomed for failure. Imagine if a gaming company in charge of servers with that name was around nowadays. I think alot of gamers would second guess using their services. Mann the good ol days.

[@cericat]

When I first heard of them I figured it started as a stat tracking service since esports were just starting to rear their ugly head.

[@StruggleBoxing]

​​@@cericatI remember when GameSpy was one of the more popular gaming sites in late 90s and from playing a bunch of online PS2 games. I honestly thought nothing of the name back then but I definitely would think about a name like that nowadays.

[@cericat]

@@StruggleBoxing one of my local stores was running weekend LAN parties after the retail release of Counterstrike, so I came to them a little differently than you did, back when IGN still had some respect in the industry. Definitely spent a lot of time on the fileplanet servers finding patches and mods though.

[@derpderpin1568]

@@cericat gamespy was around for nearly 15 years before esports, also literally nothing wrong with competitive gaming.

[@derpderpin1568]

@@cericat when was that? even by 1995 IGN had no respect by any conscious gamer anymore.

[@mysticaxolotl8215]

Fun fact about Wimmfi is that it was ready a *week* before Nintendo WFC shut down, unlike a lot of other fanmade revivals, which usually take quite some time after the original servers are shut down, to launch

[@mrlionman5466]

EA: AHHAHAHAHA!!! I AM THE EVILEST COMPANY IN ALL OF GAMING! *Glu enters the chat*

[@putai1234]

Funny how EA ended up buying Glu back in 2021

[@genyakozlov1316]

​@@putai1234If you can't beat them, eat them. Double the legacy destruction, double the developer shutdown.

[@GrumpyWolfTech]

This is the exact reason why EVERY game should have a p2p option to set up your own server.

[@HarleyHerbert]

In 2014 Bungie released a patch for Halo PC replacing the GampeSpy bits with a custom server browser. You should be able to see and join servers after installing the patch and it works with people still using it still even now, maybe you didn't have the patch? Either way, if anyone still wishes to play it you need the 1.10 patch. There's still some people playing it so it's still good for people who want to go back and play the old version of the game. A lot of custom content too.

[@lopwidth7343]

There's a whole era of about 20 years just being completely lost into a black hole of the early internet from servers being shut off. There's literally so many memories of websites and resources just being gone forever and not documented anywhere

[@AlanRipman]

Planet half life was where I first started. Met my first online gaming friends there when I was about 11 or 12

[@18wesenbergb]

the sheer quality of essays you guys produce, in such short of time, makes me so happy. Thank you for your continued commitment

[@roflBeck]

Fortunately Halo worked around this after a while. Bungie updated Halo Custom Edition one more time, years after the last one, so that it uses a different master server. Still works last time I checked.

[@roleplayingpain4349]

that's what really sucks about turning gaming into your own personal alternate reality. You never can tell when someone may shut reality down

[@PixelsNcreatureS]

I remember seeing the logo and never knew what it was 😂

[@codelyandmore]

Bro was NOT playing League of Legends on a controller at 16:27

[@contra7631]

I just wanted to let you know that you forgot about IGI-2 Covert Strike. That game also relied on gamespy, one of my favourite singleplayer and multiplayer game. That even got shutdown but was held for a few years via 3rd party server launchers.

[@fortnitefanatic4209]

16:28 guy playing league with a controller jumpscare

[@gleyno]

Am I hearing Toto Africa in the background?

[@xManUxLP]

I played THPS3 Online back in the day. This shutdown killed the already small community. To host a serve you needed to enable some ports what made it a big struggle to find servers even with GameSpy. But after the shutdown there was a alternative idk what it was in the detail and just played once on it, because the player base was just to small and no severs could be hosted. Feld really bad to see the online community of the game die. Was fun playing with the OnDrugs and other clans.

[@hrtful]

that intro got me crying lmao, GAMERS REVOLT

[@Roxor128]

If you have to rely on something, never get it from a company. Always go for community-maintained solutions. If you're a game developer, always make your game able to be run solely by your players. Running servers is not your job. Making great games that can be played long after you're gone is.

[@JayHawk02]

Bungie posted an Online Update for Halo CE so its playable, Rocket Sloth.

[@herpdederp6186]

Umm, I don't know about others, but Borderlands is definitely playable in multiplayer, so the "never to come back" part is quite... stretching it.

[@backtoobasics]

Sounds like theres a business model in hosting these games on the back end.

[@Roggor]

In much the same way as e-waste recycling businesses sell old computer parts and such.

[@brodriguez11000]

Stadia, Amazon Luna, Nvidia Geforce Now, Xbox cloud gaming, Playstation Plus, Shadow PC, Steam Link.

[@Ryzza5]

There's interest sure but also a lawsuit risk from breaking the EULA. Community servers running for free tend to be ignored but that could change if they started charging.

[@archaeologistify]

I wish there was a program that would basically be a collection of server browsers for any game you give it. You'd set it up to show browsers for 5 or more of your favorite old games, even community servers and you could setup notifications that would tell you somebody else is playing.

[@SpanWolf]

RIP GameSpy, as an old employee of the company this was a blast from the past.

[@oscarsaldana4700]

what did you do at GameSpy?

[@SpanWolf]

@@oscarsaldana4700 I helped run FilePlanet.

[@mandai2]

@@SpanWolf Only thing I can remember about Fileplanet is the long waiting times/quotas for downloads 🥱

[@maxmaus4402]

I remember hearing about the death of GameSpy servers because of Rise of Nations, an old RTS I played as a kid. Crazy to hear how many things they actually hosted, always thought it was a small thing tbh.

[@BadaBing420]

I love to Pirate games

[@irpanfauzi1160]

i mostly Pirate Game to test it if i like the game so much and No red flag Sign on it Developer then i have money i am sure will buy it

[@Fallout3131]

@@irpanfauzi1160Same here. I’ve bought a lot of games I pirated and really liked.

[@mrwang420]

Imagine an unreal tournament battle Royal. That would honestly be sick as hell. Bunch of teams get dropped off on an alien planet in space ships then go at it. I'd play that for sure.

[@mekolame]

Ruined Medal Of Honor Allied Assault, albeit there is a work around now for servers. Glad to see a community playing.

[@derpderpin1568]

all 5 of them

[@Rideps1]

Us battlefront fans just can't catch a break. After this EA got their hooks in and made those reboots and just yoinked the names... I can't tell you how many people just forgot the OG ones existed because of these two things.

[@jouebien]

343i patched game spy out of Halo CE - they actually broke a number of mods because they broke compatibility with open source. yes you are "too stupid" to get Halo CE running - you have to update the game to 1.10 - there is an updater application in game's folder that will do it for you. The server browser (even before the game spy shut down) would only show hosts running the same version number.

[@Techischannel]

So in the beginning, servers were handled like they way they are in minecraft. You would find a server IP adress and connect to it. Some servers were more complicated as they themselves were on a Pseudo-LAN server so you have to use services such as Hamachi to connect to the Pseudo-LAN server so you could connect to the servers on said Pseudo-LAN thing via the same IP system. (Kinda like having multiple Sub-IP Adresses for the same Company and connecting to a company server before accessing its internal servers and programms. Infact not just kinda but basically exactly the same, just less of a laggy and slow interface that may kick you out randomly between right now or the next 15 minutes because being logged in does not mean you stay logged in)

[@dustinnrussell]

rip smackdown vs raw

[@judgedrekk2981]

the first one on PS2? yeah that was a decent one....and one of the last good WWE games.... good roster, good OST, really good creation tools, good career...solid game from what I remember, the rest got eh, messed with the controls too much and the switch to gen 7 just saw the addition of greed mechanics more and more I tried the first WWE under 2K, didn't like the game at all, nothing had changed from THQ lol RIP good WWE games!

[@brandonperez8977]

​@@judgedrekk2981SVR used to have online mode on PS3 and Xbox 360 again but the only problem there were some odd glitches which it helped a lot of toxic players wins or by screwing the matches by making it unplayable

[@fix0the0spade]

EA were unusually scummy when this happened, even by EA standards. After the shutdown was announced there were sales of various games that needed Gamespy on the front page of Origin, with EA teasing an announcement coming soon. That sale ran for months until exactly 1 week before the end of Gamespy when EA made it's announcement. The announcement was of course that all of those games they'd put on sale would be shut down, because we're EA and up yours.

[@dustinnrussell]

2:30 Tim Cook!?

[@slider-arkofwar463]

You act like there's only one man with that name...

[@xyzz8722]

Le Tim Cook

[@kisunebi2354]

One day I decided to go back to Crysis 1 MP but I couldn't. Everything was gone, those 64 player huge servers were not existing. Such a sad day

[@lordfizzz]

Man ive been bombarded with content lately that captures my late middle/early HS nostalgia 😭 i just remember playing halo ce on xbox thru gamespy, dominos 555 deals, drinking bottles of cough syrup and playing sons of liberty, using netzero late at night so the dialup modem didnt wake my parents and somehow playing starcraft behind that annoying ad banner. My buddy got broadband internet before any of us so wed always hang at his house and my mind was blown how we were able to lobby on pc gamespy to play CE on xbox online w kids from all over the world

[@kevinconverse1799]

I’ve been watching since this channel was almost exclusively halo content and i love seeing the direction y’all’ve taken. These long form videos with a compelling topic work well with y’all’s style. My only critique would be the consistency of Elijah’s audio between when he is dubbing over footage vs when he’s speaking from his desk. Great vid as always, keep it up!

[@waryth4475]

30:00+ minutes into the video it just ended up some podcast talk. Absolutely terrible. You're no longer showing anything but just saying your opinions at this point.

[@Owiion]

Saw this video on my homepage, and went for it. Gaming History stuff is fun, and interesting to me. If you do more of this I'll definitely be interested. I liked the first half of the video a lot more than the last half of the video though. The information was interesting the whole way through, but there were moments where I was kind of forgetting what video I was even watching, asking myself "why am I listening to these guys talk again? What is this video about again?"

[@Pnk117]

Also i do have the patch for halo multiplayer if you need it