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Here is the text of a message I sent to Porsche AG in Germany on Friday August 8, 2003.  I'm hoping Porsche will use their influence with Electronic Arts to keep our favorite pastime alive.  We will see...

Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG

Manager of Brand Development

Dear Porsche,

The purpose of this message is to inform you of a situation that may have a negative effect on the Porsche name and its reputation for high quality and good customer support. I am the same person that contacted you in December of 2001 and January 2002 when a previous problem developed with Need For Speed - Porsche. Since that time, Electronic Arts customer support has been in contact with me on a number of occasions. I have been serving as spokesperson for the 2000+ members of the Racerplane.com/forums regarding matters of Need For Speed - Porsche.

Approximately three weeks ago the servers that support Porsche 2000/Porsche Unleashed online racing went down. At the same time, all of the EA Racing website became unavailable. Electronic Arts advised the user community that one of the hard drives went bad. The drive was replaced in about a week, and the racing servers became available for use again. However, none of the EA Racing website, including the features that allow new people to create an account and experience the joys of racing Porsches online, have been restored. All of the game statistics and even the links to the Porsche.com website continue to remain unavailable.

In response to my E-mails, an EA representative called me yesterday. As amazing as this may sound, it is unclear that they have a backup that will allow them to easily restore the site. Even if they locate a backup, it appears they are unwilling to spend the time to do the restore. There was also talk about shutting down the servers permanently on October 1st, 2003.

In addition to the issues with EA Racing, EA has removed all of the Needforspeed.com site relating to Porsche. Please look at your own Porsche site page here.
http://www3.us.porsche.com/english/usa/entertainment/default.htm
Click on Need For Speed, then "continue" and you will see you are linked to EA's new game NFS-Underground. This game features illegal street racing with Japanese "Rice Burner" cars. I live in Southern California and hear reports of people being killed by illegal racing in these Japanese cars almost every week. It seems inappropriate that EA has revised their pages so that the Porsche site is now linked to such a page.

I am a long term Porsche owner. You can see my car here.
http://members.tripod.com/76targa/id27.htm
I plan on retiring next year and am hopeful I will be able to upgrade to a new model 911.

I bought the Need For Speed - Porsche because I owned a Porsche. However a number of the people I race against online have actually bought Porsches because of the game. I think the use of Need For Speed - Porsche to foster the Porsche name was a brilliant marketing tool that has served Porsche AG well. The single player game is good. However, online racing with Porsche drivers from around the world is what motivates people to enjoy the Porsche driving experience day after day. I am hoping you will be willing to contact Electronic Arts and use your influence to both restore the ability for new people to enjoy the Porsche experience and to get them to restore the access to the racing records. I feel the expense would be minimal compared to the public relations benefits Porsche AG would realize.

I also have a suggestion for a future marketing tool. I have seen countless requests in our public forums for an add-on expansion pack for Need For Speed - Porsche. The original game included an excellent selection of cars. However many of the legendary models were excluded. We would love to experience more of the Porsche racing heritage including the 962, and also the latest models available for road use. Most of the features of the existing game are fine without change. The addition of new cars and tracks to the basic game should minimize the programming efforts. People indicate that they would be more than willing to buy an expansion pack for the same full price they paid for the original game. I see a mutual benefit to both EA and Porsche AG.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give to those of us that love Porsche's and the virtual driving experience that Need For Speed – Porsche has provided.

Sincerely,