I'm seeing a lot of games suddenly go on sale this month, many of which haven't been updated in years. Is there any way to tell before you purchase if an App is on Apple's kill list when iOS 11 is released? This strikes me as possibly underhanded on the part of the developers of these orphaned Apps (I'm looking at you Fusion Reactions and your unsupported 100 Rogues).
It's unfair to say that the sales are underhanded. Anyone using an iPhone older than the 5S or the iPad Air/ Mini 2 won't be able to update their systems, and surprisingly that counts for a large number of consumers. There are over 1 billion active iOS devices in the wild, after all. A safe bet is that any app whose last update is prior to June 2015 is not 64-bit. If the last update was prior to February 2015, the chances are even higher. (Source) The only part of the quote that's demonstrably wrong is the timeline for removing 32-bit apps. Here's another article with more information on the 64-bit transition
All the Cave bullet hell games are affected as well as some tin man games apps, some dotemu games, Canabalt, Shantae pirates curse, epoch 2, Mage gauntlet, streets of rage 3 and counterspy. This is terrible! There are so many even discontinued ones like quarrel deluxe and burnout crash. Do you think cave will update to 64bit?
If it's not freemium, then unfortunately, there's a good chance it's probably not worth it to update it. It's time and energy that devs are probably better off spending on other projects... iOS games or otherwise. It may be another matter entirely if they could charge for updates, making it worth their while, but Apple of course doesn't allow that. Me... I have no plans to update my Ipod Touch 5, nor Ipad Air, so I may as well see if any of the discounts are decent. As much as some people hate to admit it, if it's cheap enough, then I'll treat it as "disposable games". I've had quite a few games I paid $1 to $5 for, got MANY hours of enjoyment out of them, and have no desire to ever touch again. I don't expect to be able to reload these games 1, 5, 10, 30 years from now, nor pass it down to my children, or their children
I'm suggesting you guys to start buying most of the expensive 32 bit games such as half of Slitherine (BA 1,BA 2,Hell) games,dynasty warriors or whatever that strategy game is called,space hulk,etc.
