> Remember the days when the server component was included with the base game? Anyone could launch a server and play with friends and strangers online. I miss those days.

I hear you, but several of the games in this particular announcement seem like they're from that era:

    * Unreal Gold
    * Unreal II: The Awakening
    * Unreal Tournament 2003
    * Unreal Tournament 2004
    * Unreal Tournament 3
    * Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition

IIRC, back then the games usually shipped with the server component and all servers were run by players, and the publisher only ran a simple directory server.

Since those directory servers were so simple, I think I seen cases where someone cloned them, then batched the binary to just to go a different address for the directory.