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Product Graveyard
Postmortem1990s

GameSpy

Online multiplayer matchmaking and gaming news network that powered multiplayer for hundreds of PC games in the 2000s.

Launched

September 1996

Discontinued

May 2014

Lifespan

17.7 years

Category

gaming

Cause of Death

Acquired & Killed

The company was acquired and the product discontinued. Often the team is the asset, not the product.

What Happened

GameSpy Technologies powered the online multiplayer backend for over 800 games at its peak, including Battlefield, Halo, and Medal of Honor. IGN acquired it in 2004. Ziff Davis bought IGN in 2013 and shut GameSpy's servers down in May 2014, simultaneously breaking multiplayer for hundreds of classic games.