Gaming → GameSpy Closing

I can't say that anyone will really miss it.

I am surprised it was still going.

GameSpy, as we know it, began in 1999. Today, 14 years later, it has reached the end of the road. We had a good run, and we want to sincerely thank all of you for reading and joining in discussions with us. It's been fantastic.

Just to be clear, we're not being shut down because PC gaming isn't a big, important, and growing thing -- because it is. That's not even debatable. It's not even because the GameSpy staff did a bad job of talking about it. Hell, from where I'm sitting we did an awesome job, particularly in covering the technical quality of PC versions of cross-platform games in our Port Authority features, reality-checking the hype of about-to-be-released big games with our Questions & Concerns series, delving into the nuances of MMORPGs, strategy, MOBAs, and simulations in our columns, regularly checking up on free-to-play games in Free Agent, calling out Microsoft's neglect of PC gamers, mocking Ubisoft's claims of a day-and-date PC release of Assassin's Creed 3, breaking the news on SimCity's lack of save/reload, and of course our amazingly bizarre The War Z interview.

Why is this closure happening, then? It's a business thing, and like most business things it's not easy to explain or understand unless you spend all day crunching numbers and paying bills. Which I don't. So here's the simple version that even I can comprehend: Ziff Davis wants to run an efficient, focused company, and managing several different sites that all cover videogames isn't exactly the model of efficiency. Even though GameSpy had its own unique voice that was separate and distinct from those of our sister sites, and there has always been value in that, it's hard to argue with that logic. Even if it does totally suck.

The silver lining is that the value of all of the voices and opinions of our staff and writers won't just go away. We'll still be out there talking and writing about the great things happening in the world of PC gaming, both at IGN and other places around the internet, because it's what we love to do. It's why we wanted to work at GameSpy in the first place. We hope you'll keep reading and watching and talking about PC games with us.

On that note, here's a list of the people -- and associated Twitter names -- who helped make GameSpy the fun and insightful PC gaming site it's been for the past year. I think you'll find there's more where that came from.

- Dan Stapleton, Editor in Chief

Source »pc.gamespy.com/articles/ ··· 0p1.html

1 year later after that update was posted and they are being shut down.

You may want to read the whole thing. What you quoted is out of context and the context makes it say the exact opposite of the message you're trying to attribute to it.

*DEEP RUMBLE VOICE*

"WELCOME TO GAMESPY!"

R.I.P. I'll miss you. Used to love Dave Fargos articles.

When I read this, I forgot that Gamespy was actually a journalistic enterprise about gaming for gamers. My initial thoughts were about Gamespy's game servers(Quake 3 servers for me in particular) and playing on them back in the 90's.

Then I thought about this multiplayer website called "Heat" something. I remember being a member of this gaming place online and playing the Quake games with other people. When I read the name GameSpy those were the immediate thoughts I had... playing online FPS's, late 90's, on antiquated(by today's standards) servers and lobbies. And the website had the word "Heat" in it's title.

Yea man! It reminds me of the same stuff, but mostly of the Original!! Team Fortress mod for quake 1. Opened my eyes to a whole other side of gaming. I wish we could get mods like we used to.

Action Quake 2, TF, CS, Navy Seals for quake 1, rocket arena

heck, even servers with just the grappling hook enabled were awesome!

Oh yeaaaa.... I definitely remember Action Quake 2, rocket arena, and team fortress. Those were awesome mods! And they literally added years of extra gameplay that made the price of owning Quake feel like it was an investment. All those quality mods that came out for the Quake games felt like brand new games... you almost felt like you pulled a fast one on id software.

Those were the days, for sure...

Say, you wouldn't happen to remember that multiplayer service awhile back with the word "Heat" in the name. It might have just, literally, been called Heat.

I gave some cash to this venture back in the early 90's. Mainly used it for Team Fortress games.

It was Heat, but people started using Quakeworld (gamespy v1) and Heat died.

QuakeWorld, written by John Carmack with help from John Cash and Christian Antkow, was released in December 1996. Further development was later taken over by David Kirsch (a.k.a. "Zoid" from Threewave, of Capture the Flag fame) and Jack 'morbid' Mathews. It included a useful program called QuakeSpy, written by Mathews, which later evolved into GameSpy.

It was called Heat.net, a 3rd party hosting platform as you described it. Was through Sega actually if I recall. I have a couple t-shirts I got through giveaways back in the day from it. "Cyberbullets cause no pain". Oh lawd, memories.

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Se ··· Heat.net

I remember getting one of their t-shirts as well. I loved Heat.net... they also had that awesome (for back in the day) MMO 10Six!

Man, reading that wiki page on heat was really cool until I got to the part about people abusing the degrees.

Gamers can be such scumbags sometimes. Just like how people botting in Diablo 3 ruined the AH and the economy.