Sniper Elite servers quietly shut down by games giant Glu Mobile

Games giant Glu Mobile, the company that recently acquired website and gaming portal Gamespy, is quietly shutting down multiplayer servers for Sniper Elite, SWAT 4, the first two Neverwinter Nights games, Star Wars: Battlefront and Flight Simulator X, among others, according to numerous complaints from fans on the official Gamespy Facebook page.

In response to the recent closure of the Sniper Elite game servers, developer Rebellion wrote a letter to fans on its forums explaining the situation at hand. According to the post, servers were shut down by Glu without Rebellion's consent.

"A few weeks ago, the online multiplayer servers for Sniper Elite were suddenly switched off by Glu, the third-party service we had been paying to maintain them," the post reads. "For the past seven years we have run these servers at a cost to ourselves so that fans of Sniper Elite could continue to play online for free. This decision by Glu was not taken in consultation with us and was beyond our control."

Rebellion is in talks with Glu to turn the servers back on, stating in the post that doing so would cost tens of thousands of British pounds every year.

"We have been talking to them since to try and get the servers turned back on," the post continues. "We have been informed that in order to do so would cost us tens of thousands of pounds a year — far in excess of how much we were paying previously. We also do not have the option to take the multiplayer to a different provider. Because the game relies on Glu and Gamespy's middleware, the entire multiplayer aspect of the game would have to be redeveloped by us, again, at the cost of many tens of thousands of pounds."

It is unclear why servers have shut down. We have contacted Glu Mobile for comment and will update the post when more information becomes available.