GameSpy server shut-downs: Rebellion head responds

Rebellion head and co-founder Jason Kingsley has responded to GameSpy's sudden server shutdown. Rebellion's Sniper Elite servers have been canned in the wave of closures, and Kingsley has spoke out on the matter after seeing waves of his fans unable to play online without any warning. Get the details below.

The server shutdown was enacted by new GameSpy owners Glu, seeing a wave of PC titles losing their online connectivity.

Speaking with PCGamesN, Kingsley called foul at Glu's sudden move, “First we heard of anything were some irate fans getting annoyed with us about the original Sniper Elite multiplayer servers being down, and I mean very annoyed,”

“We looked into it and found out there was no technical issue, the servers had just been switched off."

Kinglsey then contacted GameSpy to question the closure, and was met with the explanation that the servers were closed because they weren't being used, when in fact the servers were still seeing active players.

He added, “We pointed out that they obviously were being used and that we had been paying a modest annual amount to keep them running for our older titles, and that at least it would have been a good idea to at least pre-warn our fans that this was happening,”

“The amount it would cost to keep the servers running now would be prohibitively high for us, and rewriting the code would also be expensive for us even if we could figure out how to do it in such old code.

“Sometimes things do come to an end, but usually communication of that fact beforehand is the best and most proper way to handle this sort of situation.”

What do you make of the GameSpy server closures? Let us know below.