Yesterday, Xbox announced 76 new titles would be joining its Backwards Compatible program. One of them was EA's 2009 skateboarding game, Skate 2.
Now, as highlighted by the game's fans, EA will actually be closing down the game's online services for both Xbox and PlayStation next month on 10th December. It's not been an "easy decision" to make, according to EA. It's also resulted in some frustration being directed at the third-party publishing giant over on sites like Reddit.
Here's the announcement in full:
@skateEA Additionally, we’re providing a heads up that on December 10, 2021, we will be turning off the Skate 2 online servers for PlayStation and Xbox. It’s not an easy decision and not something we take lightly. For more info check: https://ea.com/service-updates
While Skate 2 may no longer be playable online very soon, you'll still be able to get your offline fix thanks to Xbox's BC program. EA is also currently working on the next Skate game.
How do you feel about the timing of this announcement? Leave a comment down below.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 12
That’s EA for you… truly unbelievable how they care less and less about their fan base from games.
Makes sense, it's an old game and they probably don't get to many users still playing this game online.
I think it's one of those situations.
The game is probably wasting server resources considering its age, but how would it look if they turned off PlayStation and left Xbox on due to BC support?
Crappy situation regardless, but the game is over 12 years old.
Honest question: is there much online in this game? I always assumed Skate was mostly Single player. What is getting cut? Is it a big deal?
From my 'never played it perspective' it launched almost 13 years and 2 generations ago, it's servers have lasted FAR longer than most, be thankful for that, though obviously the timing looks bad.
People are worried about a live server for Skate 2 still? It was released in 2009, I don’t think it’s an unreasonable occurrence.
Atleast it's not like need for speed (2015) really liked that game but I wish I knew it required an internet connection even to play single player wouldn't have pre ordered it knowing I'll not be able to play it when the servers get shut down
@Tasuki They literally just re-released it. It's safe to assume that they probably got a huge spike in people playing it online lately.
@JayJ It's not a re-release it's the same game that it has been for 10 years now. Online communities don't last forever, especially for niche games like Skate or when there's a newer entry in the series.
@Tasuki Well okay but they literally just made it accessible again on a highly popular online enabled platform.
@JayJ @JayJ It's been online since it came out hence why they are shutting down the servers, they probably don't get much traffic on them anymore to warrant the cost to keep them open.
@Tasuki Well okay but they literally just made it accessible again on a highly popular online enabled platform. I said that before but you seem to be working under this assumption that nothing has changed since it was 360 only. I shouldn't have to go into detail on why there would be a lot more people online on Xbox One/Series S/X than there was with the old 360, and how releasing a game on One/S/X would mean a lot of newcomers would suddenly want to play it online.
@JayJ Even if there is a surge of new players it won't last long because there are better games out there. For example when Activision made Black Ops 2 backwards compatible for the first 2 weeks the online numbers were high but soon after everyone got there nostalgia fix the player count went down to nothing again. That's what will happen with Skate 2 it's not worth it having them open in the long run.
Tap here to load 12 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...