Marvel Avengers Alliance Tactics which was launched on Facebook just a few months ago on June 2, 2014 will be shut down on 22nd October 2014. With no explanation from Disney or developer Playdom on the matter, players are now venting their frustrations on how to claim back real money that they have spent on buying in-game gold.

As a long-time player of Marvel Avengers Alliance (I started playing during the launch and view Tactics as a separate game), I am well acquainted with Playdom's format. You can either spend some time grinding to unlock content and resources (especially command points for hero recruitment, which you can obtain on a roulette after you defeat a boss in a mission) or spend real money to buy gold and exchange those for command points or to buy premium weapons for your agent, skip quests or speed up hero training.

Playdom’s support pages included this developer statement:

“It is a difficult decision to shut down this game, but this will allow us to focus on building new and more engaging games. We appreciate your support and understanding. Please understand that support for this title will be limited leading up to its closure and issues that would require additional assistance and or game fixes, will not be addressed prior to the shutdown. Please note that Playdom is not responsible for providing refunds or credits for any virtual items, in-game currency, or other items that may be no longer available once a game is shut down. More information may be found in our Terms of Use.” * Bold added for emphasis.

Of course this means that players who have spent gold on the game will definitely be worried as I know players who spend hundreds of dollars for "virtual" bragging rights. With the game shutting down so soon after releasing content up to Chapter 3 (I have played it occasionally too) it is a tough blow to the players - especially those who forked out their money.

Disney has been shutting down several other Playdom games recently – including Pirates of the Caribbean. The Playdom website version of Marvel Avengers Alliance was also shut down on 20th of April this year.

It is possible that the game was simply not ready upon release - the title seemed like a rushed job. During the launch beta, when I played the game I could not help but notice that some of the classes were not getting bonuses versus their counter class. There were also some horrible bugs, as evidenced by one of their patch logs here:

BUG FIXES

Fixed a few bugs that may have been causing some users to get a crash launching the game

Fixed a bug with the Balefire Raptor that was causing the game to crash when it used the “Melted Armor” ability

Epic Boss 1 will now launch correctly for all players - Early adopters that defeated M.O.D.O.K. and then were not able to face him again will now be able to

Fixed a bug that reset facility upgrade timers if the building was attacked during the upgrade - Long upgrades there we being restarted due to PvP attacks will now be a thing of the past

Fixed some issues related to class bonuses not working under certain conditions

Extended the PvP combat timer from 7 minutes to 12 minutes

Fixed an error that prevented the radar button in the Battle Log from taking the player to the location of the attacker

Fixed a bug with Black Panther’s Guard ability that caused him to lock up in combat if the guard higher than 7th level

Fixed a bug with She Hulk’s Defense Lawyer ability that caused it to proc when enemies were hit around her

Dr. Doom’s “Shocking Armor” no longer stacks.

Captain Marvel’s Tactical Command no longer applies Target Focus to allies.

She-Hulk’s “Defense Lawyer” passive no longer protects enemies from area attacks.

Infiltrators should no longer counter-attack random tacticians at random times.

The Light Speed status no longer stacks, and is removed correctly on use.

Black Widow can now use “Flying Kick” on an adjacent target.

With Disney shutting down a number of games, will it be Marvel Avengers Alliance next? I hope not. I still actively play the game, even 2 years after launch. We can only hope that Playdom and Disney will learn from this and do better on their next game release.