Fix the Improper Delisting of Marvel Puzzle Quest Dark Reign on XB1/XSX

FoolontheHill24

On xbox, Marvel Puzzle Quest Dark Reign was recently removed from sale at the end of September. I understand licenses expire and contracts end. Thats fine. I'm not asking for it to be put back up for sale. But whoever is in charge of your Partner Center account made some mistakes when removing it from sale.

Beyond just removing it from sale, they also hid the games page on the xbox storefront.

https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/store/marvel-puzzle-quest-dark-reign/BTQSPR43SR63

As you can see, when you go to the page, you see the error "We are sorry, the page you requested cannot be found." Hiding the store page on the xbox storefront creates a big problem for owners of the game. The console communicates with the storefront to verify ownership, and if it can't see the page, it effectively doesn't know the game exists anymore. This means the game doesn't show up on the console store, web store xbox app, and most importantly, the console library. So the game has been removed from owners libraries. This means that nobody who owns it can redownload it to play it.

In addition, they also seem to have toggled some of the embargo features in Partner Center that are usually only used before a game is released to prevent spoilers and info leaks. The game has been removed from all user profiles/gamercards. The gamerscore is still counting towards players overall score, but they can't see the game on their profile or view the individual achievements. This needs to be undone/unhidden, as it also blocks the ability to download it through another users profile. So the backdoor download has also been severed.

The final issue, is that D3 seems to have also toggled off its xbox live connectivity. There are options to prevent games from connecting to xbox live before it's ready to release. These options have been turned back off, so if anyone still has it downloaded and tries to launch the game, it gives the error "Try a different game or app. Try again in a few minutes. If it's still not working, select Check service status below (0x87e10bc6)". It leads to the splash screen and then force closes when that error message pops up.

As it sits currently, because it has had the xbox live sandbox connectivity severed, it cannot refresh user licenses. This means that nobody can play this game anymore, even if they had it downloaded prior to you delisting the game. You've blocked all owners ability to redownload the game, and all owners ability to play the game.

This is not how games are supposed to be removed from sale. No other game has had this done to it upon delisting. Games are supposed to be able to be redownloaded and played by people who bought them while they were still for sale, provided the game is not an online only game where servers have been shutdown, like The Crew or any now defunct MMO. This game didn't require any online connectivity to play. So any excuse of a shutdown does not apply to Marvel Puzzle Quest Dark Reign. You've effectively taken the game away from everyone who has ever purchased it on xbox. Even the people who bought it the day before it was removed from sale. Those people bought the game for $14.99 and didn't receive the game. And I'm sure quite a few people bought it recently as you had announced it was going to be removed from sale at the end of September. It's great to announce a delisting, rake in some money from people's last chance to buy the game, and then completely block them off from being able to download or play the game you sold them. It's almost malicious.

I have spoken to the developer, Wayforward Technologies, Microsoft, and D3Publisher. All of them are saying this is because of something 505 did. I contacted 505 Games, and they said its d3go's fault and pointed me to you. They then promptly ignored me when I pointed out that they own d3go and can fix it themselves, or contact you guys and have you fix it. So now I'm here.

Please get in contact with whoever is in charge of your Microsoft Partner Center account and have them fix this so your customers who bought the game can play it again.

Thank you,