MARVEL Puzzle Quest Development Update

245

Comments

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,814 Chairperson of the Boards

    @bluewolf I agree with you, although you're a little bit further into speculation than I might go.

    I see players celebrating this, but we have no idea who is responsible for the current issues. I think everyone involved probably shares blame, so just replacing BCS is almost certainly not going to solve the problems long-term. It will likely make this worse during the transition period, as well.

    Just remember, in life, and in MPQ, however bad you think it is now, it can always get worse.

  • Tarelgeth
    Tarelgeth Posts: 71 Match Maker

    Worse than "failing" is still just "failing". If it gets better, there's hope. If it gets worse, it's just as dead as it's going to be if it doesn't get better.

  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 3,967 Chairperson of the Boards

    @entrailbucket said:

    @bluewolf said:
    Technically it’s coming in house for the first time, unless someone worked on it before Demiurge.

    Yeah I had to do some digging. Infinite Interactive (which renamed itself to Infinity Plus Two) developed all the original Puzzle Quest games, but not MPQ, that was Demiurge.

    And Demiurge licensed a bunch of the original MPQ code directly from Infinite Interactive including the board move logic. You can still hear the sound effects from the original PQ in MPQ when you get one of those long cascades (in PQ you'd get the 'that was a heroic effort' banner).

    Not the first time Steve Fawkner has been called in to rescue a messed up game development.

    KGB

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,814 Chairperson of the Boards

    It is very, VERY funny that we've had months and months of people complaining on here that they weren't doing anything and didn't care and were failing and the game was dying etc, meanwhile behind the scenes they've actually been replacing the entire development team.

    Like @bluewolf said, this does not happen quickly. A change like this has been in the works for a pretty long time, and the transition may already have started. So they have been doing something about it, you just don't get to know that (and neither do any of the "insiders" who claim to know stuff).

  • WhiteBomber
    WhiteBomber Posts: 861 Critical Contributor

    I hate corporate speak, but love me some updates.

    I wish you well BCS! We didn't always agree, but I saw the most fun I've had with this game under your ownership. If IP2 really has any of the old team, I look forward to their future plans!

    @S0kun , I didn't see anything in there about if you will be sticking around? It sounds like yes, but you never can be to sure. You can't just have a new baby and run.

  • will7612
    will7612 Posts: 161 Tile Toppler

    Thanks for a heads up on how things are going, but..... it wouldn´t hurt to do it periodically, at least "hey fellas, we are about to fix x or y problem", or "we are aware ot this situation".

    I hope to have a great 2026 MPQ experience, with new proposals for PVE and some QoL arrangements, please don´t pop our expectations ballon too soon.

  • NMANOZ1
    NMANOZ1 Posts: 178 Tile Toppler

    @entrailbucket said:
    It is very, VERY funny that we've had months and months of people complaining on here that they weren't doing anything and didn't care and were failing and the game was dying etc, meanwhile behind the scenes they've actually been replacing the entire development team.

    Like @bluewolf said, this does not happen quickly. A change like this has been in the works for a pretty long time, and the transition may already have started. So they have been doing something about it, you just don't get to know that (and neither do any of the "insiders" who claim to know stuff).

    I think it means the publisher has been listening and not the developer. I am sure they saw the player feedback and drop in revenue and had to do something to save the game.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,814 Chairperson of the Boards

    @NMANOZ1 said:

    @entrailbucket said:
    It is very, VERY funny that we've had months and months of people complaining on here that they weren't doing anything and didn't care and were failing and the game was dying etc, meanwhile behind the scenes they've actually been replacing the entire development team.

    Like @bluewolf said, this does not happen quickly. A change like this has been in the works for a pretty long time, and the transition may already have started. So they have been doing something about it, you just don't get to know that (and neither do any of the "insiders" who claim to know stuff).

    I think it means the publisher has been listening and not the developer. I am sure they saw the player feedback and drop in revenue and had to do something to save the game.

    Why would it make any difference to us who's been listening?

    If the feedback here was so important to them, wouldn't they have told us about this when they decided it? And why didn't any of the insiders or leakers on Discord or Reddit know about this before it was announced?

  • NMANOZ1
    NMANOZ1 Posts: 178 Tile Toppler

    Possibly avoid further embarrassment? It is about damage control now. Many companies do change structures including job losses but announce it later on, it affects people's lives. So those insiders shouldn't get told these things.

  • Pantera236
    Pantera236 Posts: 646 Critical Contributor

    https://youtu.be/TPdgb5m4krc?si=fpaQglZq-pt4OAJG

    This all reminded me of this South Park bit.

  • ThisisClemFandango
    ThisisClemFandango Posts: 1,209 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited 21 November 2025, 23:53

    I'm filled with apprehension that me being a less than professional go between me and bcs may of added to this news.
    Alternatively, its like if I borrowed someone's car, then went to a demolition derby and after it got smashed up I set it on fire to give it some unity flair, and then brought it back to hear that the owner wasnt happy with my choices.
    And yes I know it sounds like an analogy

    _Mr Fandango has been briefed that sometimes he just isnt funny, I know, like it came as a surprise? What an absolute clanger. _

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,814 Chairperson of the Boards

    @NMANOZ1 said:
    Possibly avoid further embarrassment? It is about damage control now. Many companies do change structures including job losses but announce it later on, it affects people's lives. So those insiders shouldn't get told these things.

    Of course not!

    But this is a very big deal -- one would think that insiders, with access to actual important information, would have known way in advance. They didn't, so...

  • Borstock
    Borstock Posts: 3,151 Chairperson of the Boards

    The jokes write themselves.

  • Read_Only
    Read_Only Posts: 63 Match Maker

    Prayers answered. The worst period of the game for me. Best of luck to the new team trying to raise this game from the depths. If it's sunk for good and cannot be raised then I cannot complain I had a good run.

    To me it feels like they came in with good intentions, rapidly realised they were out of their depth and blagged it for a while.

  • Grantosium
    Grantosium Posts: 122 Tile Toppler

    With the added context, it feels to me like the recent balance updates were departing staff trying to get their long term wishes through before they were kicked out the door. (Remember when Disney were about to buy Fox and Fox execs just commissioned every suggestion that landed on their desks?) We might as well forget about that batch 3 ever happening.

    Really hoping we get some sort of road map by New Year. Whether true or not this is going to feel like a sunset move and it'd be nice to have some assurance that there's at least 12 more months in the game.

  • Borstock
    Borstock Posts: 3,151 Chairperson of the Boards

    I don't know how fair that is, Grantosium. They aren't allowed to "just do things" because they want to.

  • Grantosium
    Grantosium Posts: 122 Tile Toppler

    That's not quite what I said. I'm sure the balance updates were planned. Some had been signposted months ago. But if the team knew they were going, they could easily have been persuaded to rush through things that had been signed off on faster than normal "quality control" would allow.

  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 6,687 Chairperson of the Boards

    As far as S0Kun, he is an employee of 505 games not BCS, so he's not going anywhere, at least not now. I am not sure how many games he is community-managing but he probably has his fingers in lots of pies even if this one shuts down.

    We am never sure about who's doing what in the game but the publisher (505 Go/old D3go, owned by Digital Bros) has always been the one who is ultimately holding the bag and while there are probably lots of little things that BCS did on their own, I would assume that things like "nerfing characters impacting thousands of players who use them all the time" comes from the publisher down vs BCS making choices around that. The business is built around the roster - who you roster, who you use, who you need to add, etc etc and those types of decisions would never be left to a company that came into the lifecycle 9 years in and who has historically been a shorter term, smaller job development house.

    By the way, no one will ever now convince me that there wasn't a disgruntled dev somewhere who stuck Mighty Thor tokens, post-nerf, into the Venom Bomb 5E as a final "eff off, you jerks".

  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,641 Chairperson of the Boards

    It’s interesting to me that Broken Circle was HQ’d in Northern California, and IP2 is in Melbourne, Australia. I would not have expected a late stage live service game to have been placed in the most expensive game hub available (NorCal), so this move to the significantly lower cost (but solidly skilled) hub of Australia can only benefit the numbers after the initial handoff is complete. I still believe a game like this doesn’t need more than a handful of people actively working it at this stage; I bet you could do it with 4-6 people.

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