You know, I am not a EA lover, but come on - if the bloody website is using your insignia and offering free downloads of your games it is only natural it will get asked to stop doing that shit, because that is, in fact, stealing. Heck, EA even asked nicely, they could have just tossed some dry lawyer bullshit letter and be done with it too. I am pretty sure there was also some room for negotiations too, seeing how in the letter they did not tell them to close down all the shit, but just remove some stuff. Don't see how it's wrong.

All this does when you think about it is show EA are more interested in milking franchises for all they are worth until they are dead rather than nurturing communities that have been created from their games. EA are very short sighted, they want the money now, all of the money right now, they do not care about the people who like their games outside of the right now, once a game has made it's projected sales EA no longer cares about said game, EA do not support their games outside of what is needed to make the most money within the period they deem making the most money. If EA were to actually nurture it's games like Valve for example, where huge communities have grown because of Valves treatment of the communities, EA would find more people would start being happy with EA. Personally, I am disgusted at EA and it's continuous actions towards the things I love, it pains me that DICE is now quite literally EA's slave. DICE benefited greatly from Modders and by extension EA, the Battlefield series WOULD NOT BE WHAT IT IS TODAY WITHOUT MODDERS, so seeing EA act in this way is nothing but disgusting, EA's shunning of Modders is just absolutely disgusting I didn't swear even though I really wanted too... phwew./

lucidus:

Acti Blizzard did some deal with Vanilla WoW folks. Activision is a pretty low bar 😛

If I remember correctly, it was because Blizzard realised that they no longer had some of the original content. Interestingly, it was still available in the community project.

I understand that EA asked The Revive Network Team to stop distributing copies of EA's game. They legally obligated to do so, but since the game is 12 years old they could make if a free game at this time. Instead they decided to kill it. Asking The Revive Network Team to stop using any logos (including BF2 logos) and artworks is like saying a BIG F_UCK you to gamming community. Every fan page since BF2 release used BF2 logos and artwork and there was no problem with that. Also, BF2 was withdrawn from major digital shops like Steam and Origin. I still got my box copy. It's really a shame to see the best game in the entire series to end up like this. Unless they play to remaster it, it is really a d!ck move from EA. The worst part is that EA thinks they recent games are actually good. So tell me EA why your games are -50% three months after release and 6 month after release they join Origin Access when you can play a bunch of games for 5$ a month? Because those game suck and noone buys them. Start watching at 1:20 [youtube=ZKeMQE9Bw2I]

I think we all get that it's technically a form of piracy, but we're talking about 13 year old code. No one is buying Battlefield 2 anymore. Not for a really long time. Many companies release their outdated code for this very reason. It allows the community to keep the game alive. It's bad PR. The idea that EA comes crashing down on these modders. Modders who's intent is clearly to breathe more life into your game. So, more goodwill from EA, the same company that screws up franchises like it's their core mission.

fOrTy_7:

It's really a shame to see the best game in the entire series to end up like this. Unless they play to remaster it, it is really a d!ck move from EA.

Agreed. The series has gone downhill since BF2/2142. The worst of the changes being no modding support. It's not really a surprise that they'd ultimately give the middle finger to the last game in the series that showed real love for the community. We still play AIX2/FH2 on LAN here. The new games don't allow that. A shame.

TimmyP:

So apparently people don't read the article, or this site now supports piracy... They were asked to stop distributing their games for FREE, and stop using their trademarks. Unless I missed it, the service can continue.

This. "NEVER GOING TO BUY ANYTHING FROM EA, BECAUSE I CANT DOWNLOAD THEIR GAMES FREE!!". I don't understand though, why they decided to close the whole service?

ontelo:

This. "NEVER GOING TO BUY ANYTHING FROM EA, BECAUSE I CANT DOWNLOAD THEIR GAMES FREE!!". I don't understand though, why they decided to close the whole service?

So people will be inclined to buy a newer iteration of the game? Some of the older games used Gamespy so when IGN purchased Gamespy then killed it EA chose not to support the games using Gamespy any longer, instead choosing to kill the games and communities around those games, hence modders working to make the games work again. EA could have done what Bungie did with Halo by incorporating a fan made mod into the official game via a patch which then let the game stay alive, instead.... well.. it's EA, they did exactly what EA does.