AppStore is a weird place lately. Games that you buy may disappear one day without a trace. Zombies. by Bignic for example - gone. I've bought it. What the hell do I do now? Is it possible to get a refund, years later??? Any other suggestions?
If the developer didn't renew their Apple Licsense and you don't have the game backed up, there is nothing you can do. A large number of developers do not make enough money to justify the $99 fee each year and decide not to renew.
It is an issue that has been discussed before...I had the same issue with Darkin. It would be fantastic if Apple would separate your purchase account vs the store itself, so that if a game is pulled for sale it should still be in your "cloud". Unfortunately all you can do is sync all your games with iTunes and save them to your computer.
It should be a gesture by Apple get a successful game/app over so many sales and they waive the fee as a gesture of good will, and surely they make a cut anyway.
I really doubt it would be worth it financially for them. It would get some very slight good will but even that wouldn't be worth the cost.
All they need to do is host the file while making it invisible in the store, so only customers who purchased the app can retrieve it. License renewal or not. Frankly-the current situation is idiotic.
I don't know if there's any legal issue, but they should do if that's ok. It should not be acceptable that we loose access to a game we purchased. Apple should have some goodwill towards us, since they are making billions.
