To all you app store veterans, I'm curious - does anyone know what happened to the game Critter Crunch? It seemed to be a well put-together puzzle game with brightly colored pixel graphics, and I had been planning on purchasing it until it mysteriously vanished sometime around October or November. It's a shame - I've heard good things about the game, so I'm not sure why it would be pulled so abruptly from the store. Anyone have any idea or know anything about its current status? Will it be re-released sometime?
Hey (I'm from the developer) Can't say much other than that the publisher removed it from the app store. Once we have more news TA will know about it.
Just so happened to be looking today... I loved this game when I first downloaded the lite version. I am hoping that the full version will come back to the app store one day. Looking for a fun game for the holidays. RATS!!
You guys really need to get your publisher issues worked out. First it's published by Publisher X, then it gets pulled, then it gets published from Starwave Mobile (which is part of Disney I think), then it gets pulled. If you publish the game again, you've pretty much stopped everyone who has ever bought your game from ever being able to update it. My copy of Critter Crunch published by Publisher X was removed from the App Store "Purchased History" too so I can't even re-download it if I lose it... great... Not a great way to support fans (I paid $9.99 for it too). Just self-publish and give out promo codes to people who contact your support who already bought it.
It's not as easy as that. Two issues. Self publishing is not easy, first they would have to sort out contracts they have with other publishers who by this stage probably have the rights to the games name etc. then once that's done you have to hype the game up on your own costing thousands of money and forcing you to buy apple developer rights. After all that you have to pay for an advertising campaign that can get your app going. After all that it's probably easier paying Chillingo to publish it and do the pr. Second problem is your perception of giving promo codes out to anyone who emails support. Developers are limited to codes so what happens when their codes run out and people can get a copy of the game. They get a bad name and people would not realize why they can't get a code. Codes are also for reviewers so them giving these codes out would limit the amount of advertisements they would get from reviews.
Getting the rights is the biggest hurdle and probably why they keep hopping publishers. I assume they *might* have the mobile publishing rights now that Disney is no longer publishing it. Assuming they do have the rights, they can just submit it to the app store for $99/year. It's up to them if they want to hype an old game at this point. As far as promo codes are concerned, you get 50 per version. I doubt they would get that many people complaining to support, but they could always just increment the version number and get 50 more. I also doubt they will need to give review promo codes out since the game been out for awhile and there are already quite a few reviews (even an IGN review). Or they could release the app free for bit like Push Panic! did when it changed publishers. That is probably the best way to handle publisher changes. With that being said, I'd love to see Critter Crunch back in the app store and with some much needed updates (like Game Center, etc). I'm just not willing to pay for it again since I already shelled out $9.99 on it when it launched.
This is happening more and more. Some devs, like the one who made Push Panic, had the good fortune of being able to re-publish the game themselves. But others aren't so lucky. Apple is really crappy in this department. I can't understand why there can't be some policy that an app can stay on the store for re-downloading purposes and just give some kind of error message like "This app is no longer available for purchase" to new buyers. Perhaps not the greatest example, but THQ lost the rights to Star Wars games so they pulled them all from the App Store. That's fine and dandy Lucas doesn't want THQ making any more money off them. But for those who did purchase them, they should be able to get them again....just stop future purchases. Not sure why that would be so hard to do. And, yes, I realize that most people can sync to their computers to get an app back, but not everyone syncs often and others, like myself, can't even sync (I've had this problem for about a year now). Anyway, hope the Critter Crunch issue is resolved, but still think there should be an easier way to re-download apps even if they're pulled (unless it was something completely illegal to begin with like emulators that shouldn't have been there from the start).
After iCloud came out, you could redownload apps that have been pulled. I can still redownload Tris and Beat It! and they have both been pulled from the app store. I think a publisher has to explicitly tell Apple not to list it for redownload anymore, which Publisher X sadly did for Critter Crunch, which pissed me off.
