SEGA announces Puzzle & Glory will shut down in April

Things haven’t been going too well for several of SEGA’s mobile offerings in the West so far this year. In mid-January, we learned that SEGA’s hugely popular online RPG Chain Chronicle would cease operations, and now SEGA has announced Puzzle & Glory will soon follow suit.

Puzzle & Glory is a match-3, free to play RPG developed by Demiurge Studios and released in September 2015 on both iOS and Android. SEGA announced the game will shutter on April 15 with in-app purchases turned off immediately.

We have some sad news: On April 15th, Puzzle & Glory will be shut down.

It was great watching you build strong guilds, perfect character rosters, and strategize how to beat the Sandstorm. The amount of passion that you all brought to the game, and to these forums, is humbling. We wish very much that we could keep the lights on but unfortunately, the game never found an audience large enough to support the robust experience we envisioned. As a result, we have to shut things down.

Puzzle & Glory has been a work of passion for this team. They poured countless hours into building the art style, creating the characters and story, and designing the events. It was rewarding to see your excitement, as you explored the world and then invited your friends and family to join you.

This was a difficult decision. We’re sad to let the game go because of all of the wonderful ideas (yours included!) we had planned. We thank you for all of your feedback during this adventure. We’re grateful for your dedication and enthusiasm for Puzzle & Glory.

Starting today until the game’s closure, in-app purchases will be turned off. We encourage you to spend your remaining Arelium and gold.

It seems Puzzle & Glory is yet another example of SEGA’s evolving strategy when it comes to the mobile space. While it might make for a smart business move to shut down underperforming games, fans who spent considerable time and money on these games get increasingly frustrated when these games are taken away, leaving them with nothing to show from their investment.

It won’t surprise me if fans of Puzzle & Glory and Chain Chronicle think twice before investing in another free to play game from SEGA.