Marble Blast Ultra rolls right off of XBLA

by Richard Mitchell on Apr 13th 2011 5:00AM

Marble Blast Ultra, one of the earliest Xbox Live Arcade games, has been removed from the service. The game is no longer listed on the Xbox Live Marketplace, though its DLC packs are still currently available. The delisting, according to XBLA Fans, is the result of developer GarageGames' recent and rocky history.

Between the closure of GarageGames' InstantAction service in 2010 and the company's revival earlier this year, it seems the IP rights to Marble Blast Ultra have been lost in the shuffle. GarageGames, now a subsidiary of Graham Software Development, only owns the rights to the Torque game engine, which powers Marble Blast Ultra. Rights to its games are still property of InstantAction Holdings. As such, GarageGames stopped offering its old titles after its transition to new ownership in February.

In a February forum post, GarageGames CEO Eric Preisz said that it was "unlikely" that the studio would reacquire the rights to its games.

Via: XBLA Fans
Source: Xbox.com, Garage Games

Tags: delisting, garage-games, garagegames, marble-blast-ultra, microsoft, xbla, xblm, xbox

Reader Comments (39)

Oh man I loved this game! Does this mean multiplayer is offline if we still have the game on our hard drives?

I love this game.

Say whaaat. I wanted to get this years ago before I had an Xbox. Then I bought one and forgot about this. Damn.

@VeeDeeVee

Yeah, this has just reminded me that I actually own this game and never really played it. Luckily it's still on my HD.

@WonderCaliban
Do you a trade. Lv100 Mew for it.

That kinda sucks. It's a very simple, but fun game. I spent a lot of hour trying to complete every level of this game. I don't own a 360 anymore, but I would have really liked to see a sequel to this game come out for something. It's really bad news to read that they aren't doing well.

I think I prefer Marble Madness anyway.

One of the first games I ever got on XBLA. I was also a beast at this. I'm gonna check the leaderboards right now to see where I am on there and if I'm still high on the rankings years later...

3036 on single player and 788 on multiplayer. I impress myself.

And yes I'm talking about Marble Blast leaderboards and being proud of it, just let me enjoy this

This is actually really sad. MBU is one of my favorite XBLA games and I've easily logged a few hundred hours on it.

The day that i bought my 360, i bought this came and the original geometry wars. I beat every level in under par time except "Schadenfreude", which I couldn't even beat, let alone get par time.

It is upsetting to see such a great game just disappear like this.

@goodncreamy You and me both. Schadefreude was just... unfair.

It's not that hard to beat, but it is intense and getting a good time on that is a biatch. You needed to use all the tricks you learned while playing MBU

If you purchased this game you can always (re)download it from your Download history. This at least the case with the other XBLA games that have been pulled. I just recently redownloaded Smash TV to my new Xbox.

@kalmis usually games that have been pulled from XBLA show up as "unknown" on download history. For example, I can't re-download Root Beer Tapper :(

@MDizzy just checked MBU is still in my DL history. that's good to know.

Just a thought but... I've got this game and.. Seeing as its not actually available to buy, if I were to copy this on to a memory stick for my mates would I be right in thinking it wouldnt be a trial but they would actually get the full game now??

@oggsy92 you could try it but doubtful. Am I wrong in saying that you need to be signed into Live to authenticate purchased arcade games?

@oggsy92 No, they'd need to be able to log into the purchasing Xbox LIVE account in order to play the full version each time.

So what happens if a game is D listed and you need to re-download it in the future ?

Do you lose the game and your money.

@Silent Killer01 as someone said earlier you can go to your download history and re-download it from there.

I recently redownloaded Yaris think I would pick a few cheeves but...couldnt stomach the game any more than I could the first time. But it is there on an unhappy server somewhere.

@Silent Killer01 When Lost Cities was delisted I was still able to download it. I don't know how things work now, I believe DOOM was unavailable entirely.

@Silent Killer01
there are some that will no longer be availble period, doom is an example

Clearly one of the pitfalls of download-only software. The other problem I have with downloadable software is the licensing expiration issues. Crazy Taxi anyone?

@Samoth License expiration would have affected Crazy Taxi even if it were rereleased on disc last year. It's not a problem with digital distribution, it's just one of the many banes of the passage of time - most licenses have an expiration date.

@Epoque

Yes but one could acquire a game that's delicensed on a disc. Now that this game's gone if you didn't own it you're SOL.

Heck I might have bought it had I known that it was going away - too late now. :(

@MasterYogurt Why are you replying to me? That point has been made, and I didn't address it. The raised complaint was lobbed at licensed content in the game, not the license to digitally publish the game itself ...

Obviously physical games will theoretically be available 'forever', and it's not like the game in question, Crazy Taxi, has been delisted on PSN or XBLA.

Reading comprehension and such.

@Epoque

Ok, I got your point on my Crazy Taxi example. But when a game gets released in the Arcade featuring any kind of license, let's say... OutRun with Ferrari, and the license expires within a number of years. It will get pulled out of the arcade just like this game did, and that is the problem I have with download-only games.

I would love to have the option of spending a few more dollars and getting the game on a standalone disc from the developer, even if it had to be tied to my PSN/Live tag. No box, no manual... just the disc and let me be on my way.

At least they've fix the download history on xbox.com, the last time I tried to redownload a delisted game from there it told me it wasn't available.

THis game was awesome. It was one of my favorite early XBL games. Other games came along trying to copy it, but none got the simple and addicting puzzles just right like MBU.

:( :(

Schadenfreude!!!!

@Professor Lario
Why??

It's my fav. XBLA game I've bought!! By far!!!

I love how it's 10 years old and then they released DLC for it.... ;)

There's no justice in this world. :(

You can thank kroadmeister and kidrocklive of CAG for this one:

http://www.gamestop.com/xbox-360/games/marble-blast-ultra/87596

I did post this prematurely, but I can verify that it does work, at least for now. But if you get burned, a la the Gamestop DOOM code scenario, pretty please don't be hatin' me.

I had always supported download only stuff and was more than happy to give up on physical discs, but I never considered that download only stuff can disappear forever while with physical discs, you can always have a good shot at tracking down a copy.

Luckily I already have this game and now can re-download it when I want, but even this won't last forever I'm sure.

It makes me sad that at some point down the line, I will simply no longer be able to play this game.

This game is awesome!

We need rules and regulations protecting us consumers in this case. If the game has been sold in Digital distribution, we should have the right to redownload it even if a studio gets sold.

I'm not sure where confusion in the game press of who owns the Marble Blast IP is coming from. We've been pretty clear about it over at GG.

IAC owns the Marble Blast IP, only the Torque assets and IP were transferred to the new GG. The only games that IAC does not own that it did under InstantAction are the games the developers have struck individual deals for such as Lore, Ace of Aces, etc. The Legions IP is still owned by IAC, but the team behind Legions: Overdrive worked out a deal that allowed them to move forward with it as a community project.

Marble Blast Ultra rolls right off of XBLA

Reader Comments (39)

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 5:06AM Snappyguy said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 5:07AM Gary200 said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 5:20AM VeeDeeVee said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 5:30AM WonderCaliban said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 5:55AM VeeDeeVee said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 6:18AM stafa said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 6:24AM Meekermoloko said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 6:50AM imadogg said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 7:18AM MEMgrizzlies7 said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 7:29AM goodncreamy said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 12:20PM SurlyDuff said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 1:24PM imadogg said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 7:36AM kalmis said

Posted: Apr 15th 2011 8:59AM MDizzy said

Posted: Apr 15th 2011 9:04AM MDizzy said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 7:39AM oggsy92 said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 7:54AM Jack Kevorkian said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 7:54AM Epoque said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 7:40AM Silent Killer01 said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 7:55AM Jack Kevorkian said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 7:58AM Epoque said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 1:43PM Protege420 said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 8:08AM Samoth said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 8:26AM Epoque said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 8:39AM MasterYogurt said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 9:04AM Epoque said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 12:04PM Samoth said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 8:58AM DrunkSte said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 10:09AM The Albatross said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 10:50AM Professor Lario said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 11:08AM SoldierShredder said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 12:27PM Crockett said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 12:30PM supersonic124 said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 12:52PM darkinchworm said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 1:10PM darkinchworm said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 12:57PM JasonA said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 1:31PM Shimmy said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 2:33PM Dehnus said

Posted: Apr 14th 2011 12:07PM cppcrusader said

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