It’s the end of an era. Telstra has informed its users that it will be shutting down GameArena. As of October 20 both the website and the gaming servers will be shut down.
“After careful consideration,” reads a statement on the site, “the decision has been made to close the GameArena website and online servers from 20 October 2014.
“We would like to thank you for your patronage over our site’s long history serving online gamers in Australia.”
The website itself hasn’t been fully functional for a while now, but it’s sad to see the final nails being put into the coffin. I think most of us reading this site have, at one time or another, played games using GameArena’s servers. I know I have.
An email sent to Telstra through retail communications stated that GameArena.com.au “no longer fits in Telstra Media’s strategy”.
Comments
37 responses to “Telstra Shuts Down GameArena, The Servers And The Website”
I only played on GameArena servers in CS:S when the Internode (games.on.net now) were empty or full.
But still it’s sad to see it go.
I loved GameArena six or so years ago. My parents live out in the sticks with only 3G broadband, which back then was limited to a 3gig download limit, so unmetered GA servers a godsend to me.
Point Lookout was a rough town.
Everything old is coming to an end.
Not long now, MSN.
MSN Messenger went away a while ago…
MSN has been dead for a few years now. =(
In a zombie state, but not dead. I can still sign into it.
Plug’s supposed to be properly pulled on Halloween.
MSN is actually back – http://www.pcworld.com/article/2603840/microsoft-revamps-msn-integrates-with-productivity-tools.html
Haha, Microsoft are relaunching MSN, not messenger but everything else, probably because they’re idiots and think it’s a strong brand? Watch for more MSN apps on your phone, and MSN services. With everything coming I wouldn’t be surprised if they were stupid enough to rename Skype MSN Messenger.
Does this include the unmetered Steam content server that was part of GameArena as well? I’m dreading what will happen to our download quota if we can’t get Steam downloads unmetered through Telstra anymore.
Move to a modern ISP?
Would love to, but our choices are either Telstra cable or ADSL with < 2mbps download speed. The copper in our area is ridiculously degraded and we’re about as far from the exchange as you can get. If NBN Co pull their finger out and finish the work they started here, I’ll be more than happy to give Telstra the boot.
Look up steamlimiter and see if that will help. It tries to restrict downloads to quota free mirrors, you might get lucky with a peering agreement but it is Telstra so I’d not have my hopes set too high
As best I can tell, the GA Steam Content server has been dead/not accepting traffic for quite a while now. There’s a big thread over on Whirlpool that had been looking into it for a while now, which suggests the shutdown’s been on the cards for a fair bit.
The unmetered downloads section was closed last year, otherwise Steam Limiter should work, I used it, but be warned that it is very slow because its only receiving data from one server.
Well that sucks. I’m so used to typing ‘Gamearena’ into server searches for my Steam multiplayer games… So – is there gonna be a replacement of sorts? Wishful thinking?
Hearing the term ‘GameArena’ didn’t make me think of Telstra, so maybe they’ll take the opportunity to build something new?
I remember playing BF1942 on GameArena servers back in the day
Me too. Optus still has my post-match snaps up too (even though i left them about 7yrs ago) http://members.optusnet.com.au/tag-squad/
I don’t miss cogs though
Those picture rule!
=]tAg[=DarkTalent.. my friend, remember me? =]tAg[=chrus..
you dont have a copy of that stunt video we made? so many good memories, hope youre doing well
I used be a pretty active member of the Battlefield forum + community that basically centered around Gamearena during BF games prior to Bad Company 2. Quite sad to see it all go.
What’s your personal opinion on BC2, by the way? I personally love it, despite, yes, it not being a ‘proper’ Battlefield game.
So much better than 3 and 4..
Strongly agreed, cannot play BF4 especially without getting so frustrated. At the very least, BF3 was functional this far into its release!
My most memorable experience with GameArena was when one of those nazi-dinosaur games came out, GA had the only Australian servers, but my ping (with Telstra) was bad enough that I got permabanned.
GA did have a slew of vanilla TF2 servers though, which was nice to have.
Don’t get me wrong, I do not welcome its demise. The more Australian servers the better, and having the unlimited content for those poor abused Telstra customers was sweet too.
Telstra are horrible people, we probably should have seen this coming.
But let’s be serious. Telstra are for the most part the devil. So that’s not too bad. Less to do with them, the better.
Sad. VF should never have bought TCL
I will miss Gamerena for the days of the BF1942/BF2/Bf2142 Comp ladders. Good times, good times.
Plus I had still been using the GA teamspeak server for just a place to hang out with friends, sad to see that go.
Dust 2 FTW.
Where will the LGBTI community park their boats now?
Had many fond memories playing Urban Terror on their servers, sad to see it go.
I used to be the GameOp for Medal of Honor and the original Call of Duty. Many many MANY hours spent in COG with some great people, lots of awesome ladder matches with official results on the GA page for everyone to see. Awesome community and a lot of Telstra Admin support, especially from the admin Term.
Golden days of MP gaming IMO…
I have the opposite opinion. Term and the AusGamers/QGL takeover that turned Wireplay into GameArena pretty much spelled the end of the golden era of Telstra’s online gaming network. The Wireplay days had soul, when it became GameArena they turned it into the equivalent of mass produced junk.
I wasn’t around for Wireplay so I don’t know much about it, and I was resistant to Cog at first as well. I wrote many disapproving responses to it. Eventually they got it working fluidly and I resigned not long after.
Alot of time, dreams & money lost
I thought COGS was a terrible idea and a large factor in why the network lost its soul. Wireplay handled it with bookings, which were a much more personalised experience, and a lot of long-term loyal people left when COGS was introduced.
samman!
Worrisome… you’d think that gaming is a big drawcard to new customers… if Telstra has decided that part of the market is no longer worth it then it could either signal the competition that there’s space to pick up the slack, or start a trend away from hosting game servers.
Think of it, no matter what server you use, how many players are actually customers? I’ve always wondered if it’s a worthwhile trade-off.
Oh Zombie, you kidding me?!?! Haters gunna hate. We did awesome, if we hadnt stepped in telstra would have canned it with wireplay, when we build gamearena, so many people got to play in our ladders and on our servers, was a great thing telstra did for gaming, and to be honest, we’re poorer for the loss of it as a service.
with more and more games moving to centralised publisher driven ecosystems it becomes harder and harder to justify the numbers sadly
Nope, not kidding. You guys pushed quantity over quality and it showed. You created more servers to play on but you lost brand distinction and loyalty. Wireplay servers had a reputation, GameArena servers were ‘just another server in the list’.
No hate, I don’t doubt plenty of people like what you guys did. The people like myself that wanted more than just ‘a server in a list’ moved elsewhere. The Wireplay replacement forums set up when you took over are still going with a strong community.
I used to play cod heaps and use the game arena forums. I remember posting in forums and all that. it’s funny just the other day I was trying to find threads in which I posted but came up with nothing. Guess I know why now.
It’s such a weird feeling thinking about the times I spent online gaming, I actually really miss all the guys I played with on call of duty. Had some really fun times with a lot of people I never met in person.
AAACOM ELeMEnTaL
/rcon elemental
-_’ elemental
Any other cod boys I played with out there
I literally just googled call of duty Gamearena in hope I would find some CoD1 forums, oldschool posts, threads and re-live some classic moments that I was lucky to be apart of.
I remember you elemental! Hope you remember me, I was 16 and immature back then but now im 26, working in a big office in Melb.. but wishing I could go back in time for a day and just flat out game. Sniper in hand and scrim for hours upon hours.
Long live –
Vengeance
Team m8
5.56 mm
Team virtue
And all other teams, players and moments I shared on the GA ladder or pub servers 🙁
Hey intense! Yeah I remember you mate. I’m 26 now as well, married with a little girl and another one on the way. You should watch the team dot movie, see how many memories that brings back. I even Watched the rcon movie which I featured in and that really made me miSs those times, really miss when cod 1 was popular
It’s funny how the mind works… I was thinking of the CoD days as well and thought I’d google too and this thread came up.
I remember you elemental and the /rcon tag as well intense_. I remember playing against you guys on the pub servers and ladder comps and thinking how good you guys were! The ladder with rS, X squad were the days though. I was just watching old clips of iM and team.dot on YouTube the other day and it reminded me how much fun the game and online community was.
Its a damn shame. Competitive gaming will never be in Australia what it used to be. Console has far taken over gaming in general due to broadband being so much faster than what it was in the early to mid 2000’s. It used to be the only gateway we had via a PC and now the market is saturated and games made far easier.
If anyone wants to add me on facebook and chat about the CoD days im more than happy with walking down memory lane. Its good times and I do it ever so often with other mates i have on there. Fb name: Leif Jay Lalabalavu