Asmodee withdraws the release of the “Pandemic” online store and ends online multiplayer in Catania

We’re used to new content updates for Switch games, but publisher and developer Asmodee Digital seems to be doing things a little differently.

In his latest social media post, it is announced that “online multiplayer” will be disabled coming to the Switch version of Catan next month on August 4. This action is described as a “direct consequence” of the shutdown of the servers of GameSparks – an external service from Amazon, which supported the online mode.

On August 4, online multiplayer for CATAN on Nintendo Switch will be disabled as a direct result of the GameSparks server shutdown. GameSparks is an external service from Amazon that is essential for online multiplayer.

Players will still be able to discover this title “solo”, and Asmodee intends to lower the price of the game:

However, players will still be able to play the game solo. We will also lower the price to $/€14.99 following this removal. We thank the CATAN community for their support and involvement.

The same publisher and developer also recently recalled that the Pandemic game will no longer be available on the Switch eShop from July 31. Existing owners will not be impacted and will still be able to download and play it. Here is the PSA in its entirety:

As announced earlier this year, Pandemic will no longer be available on Nintendo eShop from July 31. The original digital game was released 9 years ago, and we believe that the current quality and reliability no longer live up to what Pandemic deserves on digital platforms. .

This is why we have gradually removed current Pandemic games published by Asmodee Digital from all digital stores. However, existing owners will not be impacted: all players who have already purchased the game will still be able to play and download it.

Pandemic will remain available to play online in single or multiplayer mode on Board Game Arena. We sincerely thank the pandemic community for their tremendous support and involvement over the years. Stay tuned! The Z-Man & Asmodee Digital teams

What are your thoughts on the removal of games from digital stores and the removal of online modes? Give us your opinion.