Rockstar’s latest games survive Gamespy’s shutdown

In a sign of things to come for many online services that are all the rage these days, Gamespy announced that it will be shutting down its servers last month. The end date is May 31st, and every game you own that has use of its servers for the multiplayer component will be in trouble.Rockstar and its all-star games like the Grand Theft Auto series are immediately affected by this shutdown so Rockstar announced some measures to counter-act that. For instance, it’s hugely successful Grand Theft Auto V will naturally not be affected at all. The list is as follows at the time of writing:

Grand Theft Auto will be A-OK so no need to worry… for now.

Grand Theft Auto V

• No changes will be made

Max Payne 3

• Online multiplayer gameplay: Removed for the Mac version only
• Social Club website stat tracking and leaderboards: Unaffected
• In-game multiplayer leaderboards: Unaffected

Red Dead Redemption / RDR Game of the Year Edition / RDR Undead Nightmare

• Online multiplayer gameplay: Unaffected
• Social Club website stat tracking and leaderboards: Removed
• In-game Social Club services: Removed
• In-game multiplayer leaderboards: Removed for PlayStation®3 version only

Grand Theft Auto IV / GTAIV Complete / GTA Episodes from Liberty City

• Online multiplayer gameplay: Unaffected
• Social Club website stat tracking and leaderboards: Removed
• In-game multiplayer leaderboards: Removed for PlayStation®3 version only

Midnight Club Los Angeles / MCLA Complete Edition

• Online multiplayer gameplay: Removed for the PlayStation®3 version only
• All Social Club website features and account linking: Removed
• In-game multiplayer leaderboards: Removed for PlayStation®3 version only
• In-game Rate My Ride and Driving Test unlocks: Removed

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (Nintendo DS and PlayStation®Portable Only)

• Social Club website minigames and features: Removed
• In-game Social Club content unlocks: Removed
• Social Club website stat tracking: Removed

Beaterator

• All Social Club website features: Removed
• In-game Track Upload/Download feature: Removed

Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition / MC3: Dub Edition Remix

• Online multiplayer gameplay: Removed
• In-game multiplayer leaderboards: Removed

As you probably realise, with the exception of GTA5, GTA4 and Max Payne 3, all other titles will lose part (or all of) their multiplayer functionality once May 31st passes. Which is unfortunate, because when you paid for the game, nobody told you you’d be able to use multiplayer for a finite number of years. Most modern games with multiplayer components have this problem these days, and I suspect it’s only going to get worse. Hopefully, something can be done about this in the future because as I said, you paid for those features when you bought the game and you should be able to use multiplayer after X years, if you want to replay the game for old times’ sake or if you got it second hand from some sale.