I have to admit that I’m baffled thay anyone is surprised by Party’s actions, in regards to this issue. This is the same company that knee-capped its own licensees by decoupling the shared player base in a premeditated move to then buy those same distressed properties later for pennies on the dollar.
It doesn’t excuse their actions, as far as cutting affiliates off from the Empire player base they spent years to build up, but it shouldn’t surprise anyone. If they’re willing to blatantly screw their own licensees, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that they’ll bend over affiliates, as well. As far as costs to cut, now that they’ve gotten the skins out of the way, affiliates are next.
Scan through the PartyGaming threads here. It should take you about thirty seconds to realize that PartyGaming would absolutely love to sever all affiliate ties (except for maybe a few super affiliates) entirely, now that they’ve reached critical mass. It’s no coincidence that affiliates are having so many issues with frozen accounts, complete and utter lack of response from account managers, missing stats, missing payments, and stolen player bases.
I can’t help but think that it’s best to just move on at this point, and completely write off any revenues from Party/Empire/whatever skin. The writing has been on the wall for awhile, for the vast majority of Party affiliates. There are plenty of good programs out there that actually care about maintaining and developing relationships with affiliates, and are committed to honoring contracts and agreements.