GameSpy shutdown taking Borderlands, Civilization titles offline 'temporarily'

The impending shutdown of online-service provider GameSpy Technology will "temporarily" take Borderlands and some Civilization games offline as publisher 2K Games moves them from GameSpy to Steamworks, while nearly 20 other titles will lose online support, 2K announced today.

GameSpy Technology, which provides the online back-end for dozens of games, announced earlier this year that it would close May 31. On that date, 2K said today, online service for eight different games will "temporarily" be halted as the publisher migrates support from GameSpy to Valve's Steamworks platform. The titles in question are Sid Meier's Civilization 3, Civilization 3: Conquests, Civilization 3: Play the World, Sid Meier's Civilization 4, Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword, Civilization 4: Colonization, Civilization 4: Warlords and the Windows PC version of Borderlands (screenshot above).

"During the transition, players will experience interruption of several features, including online play, matchmaking and voice over internet protocol (VOIP). Players will not experience interruptions to offline play," reads a blog post from 2K Games.

The PlayStation 3 versions of Borderlands and Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution will also go offline as of May 31, and it's not clear at this point if they'll ever be playable online again — 2K said today that it is "currently investigating the technical feasibility of transitioning those titles."

In addition, nearly 20 other 2K-published games won't be transitioned off the GameSpy Technology service, which means that they'll permanently lose online functionality on May 31:

• Close Combat First to Fight (PC / Mac)
• Jetfighter (PC)
• Jetfighter 5: Homeland Protector (PC)
• Leadfoot (PC)
• Rune (PC)
• Stronghold 2 (PC)
• Stronghold Legends (PC)
• Top Spin (PlayStation 2 / PC)
• Top Spin 2 (PC / Nintendo DS)
• Vietcong (PC)
• Vietcong Demo (PC)
• Vietcong: Fist Alpha (PC)
• Vietcong 2 (PC)
• Vietcong 2 Demo (PC)
• MLB Fantasy All-Stars (DS)
• Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution (DS)
• Major League Baseball 2K9 Fantasy All-Stars (DS)
• NHL 2K10 (Wii)
• NBA 2K10 (Wii)

"We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause," said 2K.

Publishers of GameSpy-based titles are handling the upcoming closure in a variety of ways. Epic Games told Polygon that it is implementing an in-house solution to replace GameSpy; Activision said its titles will be unaffected by the shutdown; Capcom is still figuring out what to do. We're still waiting to hear back from other companies about their plans.