Remember the GameSpy

"GameSpyDown". Taken from GameSpy.

I had this thing going on with posts lately where I missed the anniversaries of games I wrote about, like Dungeon Siege and Wolfenstein 3D. While that might not be as much of a big deal as I make it out to be in jokingly manner, I wanted to somewhat cross correct myself by following one of my ideas. Since I actually thought of about writing an "article" about this particular topic for around a month now. But this anniversary isn't the one you might expect.

Five days later, on May 31st, would reach the 8th anniversary of GameSpy's shutdown. Even though the announcement for its site closure (still available online, which is neat; kind of, at least) and other stuff arrived at late February 2013, it was at the end of May when the popular and truly ironic online gaming service ceased its activity. While I can't really fathom how important GameSpy was to many people since I just wasn't there at the time, my lack of experience with it still makes me pretty sad because of that.

Making The Match.

It all started with Quake because of course it does. Its multiplayer has proven to be extremely popular all around the world and people had to face certain challenges in order to find game's servers on Internet. That's when Spy Software was formed and that company of three people developed a program called "QSpy", which allowed gamers to find and share their Quake servers. As QSpy started to gather popularity, Mark Surfas licensed the program and renamed it a couple of times: from QuakeSpy to GameSpy. But that just the beginning.

Why the first change took place? According to Mark, id Software didn't like "QSpy" for whatever reason. That change was ultimately worth it, as QuakeWorld came in bundled with QuakeSpy. And then Hexen 2 released that also supported the program, which in term led to another change of its name to GameSpy3D. In 2000, they settled with the final title for the program: GameSpy Arcade. At that point, the amount of supported games and partnerships with other companies kept growing. You could play not only id Software's titles, but also games like Star Wars: Battlefront 2, Neverwinter Nights and many-many more. You would probably need to dig really deep into the Internet or believe in Internet Archive for full list since GameSpy's "Game Bios" page is totally busted nowadays.

But if you take a look at it, you realized that even consoles benefited from GameSpy. They licensed the technology to many parties, including Nintendo who used it as a foundation for Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service for DS and Wii. Program was also used for multiplayer on original Xbox before the debut of Xbox Live. Pretty much everyone relayed on GameSpy, and for the good reason. They were the first when in comes to multiplayer and social platforms for gamers as we know them today. From server browsers to text/voice chats and player profiles, GameSpy offered everything that's now being taken for granted. Although the program itself was free, you could choose between two optional subscription options that unlocked additional options (such as voice chat) and allowed GameSpy to stay afloat.

Gaming Planets.

However, the importance of GameSpy doesn't stop there. Before getting involved with GameSpy, Mark Surfas was responsible for opening a website called "PlanetQuake". Its purpose was to share news and help with hosting of Quake-related stuff on Internet. Much like GameSpy, the so-called "Planet Network" has proven its popular and began growing together with popular multiplayer platforms. Sites for Half-Life, DOOM, Unreal, Wolfenstein and much more served as a sanctum for some goodness. Many community projects of the past were hosted there, and I don't even know how much was lost after their demise.

Not just forums, but mods, maps, skins, demos... You name it. Both Planets and GameSpy were treated pretty harshly at the end. IGN merged with GameSpy in 2007, but later on the company responsible for its multiplayer services was acquired by Glu Mobile five years later. Eventually, both companies proceeded to just shut down everything. While the website side of GameSpy was pretty honest about the whole ordeal by mentioning how that's just a "business thing" with Ziff Davis wishing to be more efficient (in other words, all alternatives to IGN were closed), GameSpy Arcade's fate was more dramatic.

All thanks to the good old drama where some developers claimed that Glu shut down their services without notice, while latter were convinced that companies were informed about the increased prizes for GameSpy's services. Either way, the official end for GameSpy Arcade arrived at May 31, 2014. Some companies started to move their games to alternative services while others either didn't bother with anything or just shut down the multiplayer for their titles completely. At least modders managed to save some older games from losing multiplayer like original Halo: Combat Evolved or aforementioned sequel to Battlefront...

Conclusion.

Despite my short rant about IGN & Glu, I think that GameSpy was doomed either way. At time went on, more people moved on from older titles and new sites & projects began to take shape. The likes of Steam and Xbox Live started to expand and, while the technology was still very popular, I think that eventually we would've gotten the situation similar to game launcher where each gaming company tried to do its own thing. Services shotdown just speed up the process, which left many old titles without proper multiplayer platform.

Which led to many fan projects for individual games or the service as a whole. PCGamingWiki has a good list of these clones and projects, such as OpenSpy and C&C:Online. There's also GameRanger as probably the largest and alternative to GameSpy Arcade with similar features, even though its closer to the likes of Hamachi when it comes to handling multiplayer functionality for supported games. In other words, there's no definite solution to that problem: just a few small projects here and there. Definitely better than nothing though. You know, GOG could've tried to take on GameSpy's role back in a day. Perhaps they will revisit that opportunity since they wish to return to their rootes.

At least that could be recovered, unlike the contents of Planet Network. While there're archives of those older websites with their sick look here and there, I don't know how for sure how much of mods and such were saved after their official shutdown. I've seen some people note how a lot of Quake 2's community content could've been lost because of that, but I suppose there's no way of knowing unless you're familiar with said communities since the early days...  Websites looked so cool and cosy back in a day, damn it.

Give this PCGamer article a read. At the very least, it's better than my nonsense.