"EA Abandons Darkspore, Steam Pulls Game From Catalog"

"If a game company touts always online, character storage in the cloud or on a server, then the game they are talking about isn't a game at all, it's a service, and that service will inevitably go offline. This is why so many consumers hate always-online games - because in the old days when you bought a game and the company stopped supporting it or even went out of business you could still play it for the most part. But as more games get released that require a connection like Blizzard's Diablo III or EA's SimCity, they become less like games and more like online services that can be switched off and forgotten without a moment's notice."

This Darkspore game had all the bad luck it seems. Glad I never touched it (which was, of course, due to the presence of the always online bullshit in the first place).

(EDIT) Here is a Rock, Paper, Shotgun article on the same subject. (/EDIT)