It's a sad, sad day in the Skylands.

End of Skylanders Battlecast Announcement

Shutting Down the Servers

As of September 1, 2017, Activision will be shutting down the Battlecast servers and you will no longer be able to play the game digitally.

According to the announcement, they have devised a way to play the game physically, but they have not released these rules yet. Keep an eye on skylanders.com/battlecast for further updates.

Free Battle Packs and Booster Packs

From now until our servers close, please enjoy digital Battle Packs and digital Booster Packs at a reduced cost.

This “reduced cost” is free.

Free Skylanders Battlecast Booster Packs

So if you don't have a complete collection of digital cards yet and wanted to try them out, just keep tapping away at that Booster Pack button.

No More In-App Purchases

This seems like a bit of an odd move especially coming from Activision as it cuts off their only way of making money from this app.

No More Skylanders Battlecast In-App Purchases

It's pretty straightforward though. You can no longer spend any money in the Skylanders Battlecast app.

My Thoughts

I will never begin to understand why Activision treated Skylanders Battlecast the way they did.

For those that don't know: They cut or reassigned all but a handful of staff that had been work on Battlecast just as the game was launched. This meant that we got next to no tech support and very minimal updates.

After months of hyping up this new spin on Skylanders, they just abandoned the project without even waiting for a reaction from the general public.

The worst part is: I love Skylanders Battlecast. I think it's a great game (regardless of the fact that it can only be played digitally) and it's a game that I play almost daily to this day!

For the most part I think the fans of Skylanders that actually tried Battlecast did like the game. If only it had been given a little more support and some time to squash a few more bugs, I think it could have been a much bigger success.

I really, truly believe that Skylanders Battlecast is a quality game and I believe that it could have been a commercial success for Activision even without the physical cards. They could have kept it as a digital only game and even started to offer expansions digitally and I think people would have eaten it up.

As I stated earlier, I will never begin to understand the rationale behind releasing a game and immediately cutting off any real form of support for it.

Regardless of Activision's decisions, I will definitely continue to play Skylanders Battlecast right up until that September 1st cutoff date. I only wish that they would have given the game a chance to succeed in the first place and perhaps we wouldn't have to deal with this sadness.