All of the online games that are available now and upcoming rely on the developer to maintain a server to support gameplay. Works great for now... but how long until a developer says "enough already, only 3-4 people a day are using this server... I'm taking it down." 1 year? 3 years? If you bought an online game today, how long of a lifespan would you expect to get out of it? And if the game ended sooner than that... would you demand a refund or figure you got your money's worth. Seems like this is something apple should address at some point. Probably won't be an issue for awhile... but it will come up.
This is a problem with any online game. Tell the developer you'd like bluetooth or LAN options, or the very least single-player against bots, then you've got something to do when the servers disappear...
Actually I think this is a little different from most PC online games. There is no refund process with those. Apple on the other hand offers that as an avenue for users to explore if the game they purchased no longer does what was promised. Obviously when you buy anything you run the risk of it breaking or not lasting forever. Just curious what will happen when people find out their online app doesn't work anymore. Personally I'm with drelbs. As long as the dev has given me something to keep me occupied, like a single player option or multiplayer over wifi/BT... I probably wouldn't complain too much.
Well there is something and I knew this would come out someday... OpenFeint is created a Multiplayer Beta system sort of thing... Not like 2.1, but with acual multiplayer gameplay I think...
Very true, but all the dev has to do is pull the app from the store first. This isn't like old copies of "ZZZ online game" sitting on the shelf at the game store. If an online app was left up without servers to back it up, you could complain with "app does not do what is advertised" and you would get your money back. Another alternative is to stick to games like XPilot where the server software is open source so you can always run your own...
