EA to "retire" online support for select games

Sometimes you have to get rid of the old to make way for the new.

Sometimes you have to get rid of the old to make way for the new. In a, EA has announced that it will be discontinuing online services for several games, including The Sims 2, FIFA Soccer 11, and FIFA Manager 11. If you'd like to have one last online fling with one of these venerable titles, don't delay -- the shutdowns will go into effect over the next two weeks.

EA states in the announcement that "as games get replaced with newer titles, the number of players still enjoying the older games dwindles to a level -- fewer than 1% of all peak online players across all EA titles -- where it's no longer feasible to continue the behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping these games up and running. We would rather our hard-working engineering and IT staff focus on keeping a positive experience for the other 99% of customers playing our more popular games. We hope you have gotten many hours of enjoyment out of the games and we appreciate your ongoing patronage."

For a full list of affected games, including games that have already had their online services discontinued, click here.