We anticipate that even with this update, third parties will continue

[rainichan]

But they took down the shop while working on this solution. Which means they paused the issue to give themselves time.

Just a minor correction, the shop was still useable from the post in Sept til the latest maint, you just couldn't gift anything. That was the only thing taken out.

"In preparation for a renewal of the Online Store gift code purchase feature scheduled for late October, gift code purchases will be temporarily unavailable starting from the maintenance of September 27 and lasting until the renewal is completed." (source, emphasis mine.) People could still use their money to buy things, they just couldn't gift anything. The gifting part was what they paused to rework, not the entire store.