GameSpy

• 1. Introduction

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  GameSpy began with a simple problem: in 1996, nobody could find a server to play Quake on. Mark Surfas had already spotted an opportunity in the Quake phenomenon, building PlanetQuake as a hosting and news site for the game's exploding modding community. But the multiplayer side of things was a mess. Players had to swap IP addresses by hand or hunt through websites, and the Internet multiplayer scene was stumbling before it could walk. Three programmers, Joe "QSpy" Powell, Tim Cook, and Jack "morbid" Matthews, formed Spy Software and built a tool called QSpy to solve exactly that. Surfas licensed it, became its official distributor, and set in motion what would become one of the most widely used pieces of online gaming infrastructure ever built. By 2014, over 800 video game publishers and developers had relied on GameSpy's services. Then, on the 31st of May 2014, those services went dark.

• 2. From QSpy to GameSpy

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  QSpy's big break came from the game that spawned it. The Quake developer id Software bundled QuakeSpy with the QuakeWorld update, an endorsement that no small software team had earned from a developer of that stature before. When Hexen II arrived, built on the same Quake engine, the software expanded to support it and was renamed GameSpy3D. In 1997, Surfas formally licensed GameSpy3D from Spy Software and incorporated GameSpy Industries to run the business.

  Angel investment followed in 1999 from entrepreneur David Berkus. The company then pulled in $3 million in additional funding from the Yucaipa Companies, an investment group connected to Hollywood agent Michael Ovitz and supermarket billionaire Ronald Burkle. That capital funded a rapid expansion well beyond server browsing. GameSpy released MP3Spy.com, later renamed RadioSpy.com, a browser for online radio feeds using technology like Nullsoft's ShoutCast. In 2000, additional investment arrived from ZDNet.com, the publishing division of Ziff Davis, and from Guillemot Corporation. RadioSpy was shut down the same year, outcompeted by peer-to-peer music platforms like Napster and Gnutella.

• 3. The Planet Network

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  October 1999 saw the launch of GameSpy.com as the company's main games portal, but the wider network it sat inside told a bigger story. The Planet Network, also called the GameSpy Network, was a constellation of fan sites devoted to individual games: Planet Quake, Planet Half-Life, Planet Unreal. Genre hubs filled out the grid too, including 3DActionPlanet, RPGPlanet, SportPlanet, and StrategyPlanet.

  Platform-specific sites covered Sony's PlayStation 2, Microsoft's Xbox, Nintendo, and Sega's Dreamcast, though these were eventually folded into GameSpy.com. Classic Gaming alone stayed separate. ForumPlanet gave the network a message board system of considerable scale. FilePlanet became one of the largest download sites for video game files on the Internet. The original PlanetQuake that Surfas had built to host Quake mods had grown into an entire media infrastructure, and GameSpy sat at its center.

• 4. Matchmaking and Middleware

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  In 2000, GameSpy3D was rebranded as GameSpy Arcade, the company's flagship matchmaking tool. That same year, GameSpy purchased RogerWilco, MPlayer.com, and various assets from a company called HearMe. The MPlayer service was shut down; the RogerWilco technology was absorbed and improved, then released as Roger Wilco voice chat software. Roger Wilco competed directly against Ventrilo and Teamspeak for the coordination needs of team-based online games.

  By 2001, the company had moved into software development kits and middleware for consoles, adding Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast, and Microsoft's Xbox to its supported platforms. The "Powered by GameSpy" technology eventually enabled online functionality in over 300 PC and console games. In 2005, GameSpy extended support to the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS. In March 2007, the Wii joined that list. Nintendo, in particular, used GameSpy servers as the backbone of its Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection platform for DS and Wii games.

• 5. Merger and Decline

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  In 2004, GameSpy merged with IGN. The combined entity was briefly called IGN/GameSpy before settling on IGN Entertainment. News Corporation owned IGN at that point. In March 2007 the merger was formalized, and for years GameSpy Industries continued operating as the division responsible for the multiplayer service.

  The unraveling began in August 2012, when IGN Entertainment sold GameSpy Industries to mobile game developer Glu Mobile. By December of that year, Glu raised integration costs and without warning shut down servers for a range of older games, including Star Wars: Battlefront, Saints Row 2, Microsoft Flight Simulator X, Sniper Elite, Neverwinter Nights, and Fairytale Fights. Game communities that had relied on those servers had no advance notice. In February 2013, Ziff Davis, which had acquired IGN from News Corporation, shut down IGN's secondary sites, ending GameSpy's editorial operations. GameSpy Technologies remained operational as a separate entity during this period.

• 6. The Final Shutdown

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  In April 2014, Glu Mobile announced it would close the GameSpy servers permanently on the 31st of May 2014. The stated reason was to redirect developer attention to Glu's own services. The consequences fell unevenly. Some publishers moved their games to Steam or private servers. Electronic Arts announced that 24 PC games would lose online functionality, among them Battlefield 2, the Crysis series, Saints Row 2, and the Star Wars: Battlefront series.

  Nintendo made no migration plan for its Wi-Fi Connection platform, citing the age of the affected games. Bungie's response stood apart: a fan-created mod restoring Halo's online play for the PC version was officially incorporated into a Bungie patch released in May 2014. Disney helped developers build a comparable fix for Battlefront II from 2005, delivered in 2017. Fans created Wiimmfi, a continuation of the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, just 10 days before the shutdown. Electronic Arts took the opposite approach in 2017, demanding the takedown of modified Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142 servers run by a group called Revive Network, alleging copyright infringement.

• 7. The GameSpy Debriefings

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  Before the servers went quiet, GameSpy had a voice. The GameSpy Debriefings was a podcast featuring editors from GameSpy and IGN Entertainment, ostensibly covering that week's gaming news. As of the 1st of May 2011, it ranked 25th among "Games and Hobbies" podcasts on iTunes. The show was perhaps better known for veering off topic into explicit content and nerd culture discussions than for any particular gaming coverage.

  The core crew at the show's end included Anthony Gallegos, who had passed through 1UP.com and Electronic Gaming Monthly before landing at IGN; Ryan Scott, a former executive editor at the 1UP.com Network and reviews editor for Computer Gaming World and Games for Windows: The Official Magazine; Scott Bromley, formerly of IGN Entertainment; and Brian Altano, humor editor and graphic designer for IGN.com and GameSpy. Regular guests included Will Tuttle, former Editor-In-Chief of GameSpy, and Jack DeVries, a former GameSpy editor. On the 30th of July 2011, the show ended with a final episode featuring only the main crew. They then launched a Kickstarter fundraising drive, which produced The Comedy Button, a follow-on podcast that ran to 550 episodes.