How long should a game be supported?

Discussion in 'General Game Discussion and Questions' started by coolpepper43, Sep 3, 2014.

  1. coolpepper43

    coolpepper43 👮 Spam Police 🚓

    Aug 31, 2012
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    Little Luca just got pulled. That was one of my favorites, after that I started to think. We buy these games but how long should they be supported, how long should they be left on the App Store? Should people who paid money for a game be automatically refunded when this happens suddenly? What is everyone's take on this? My feeling is that of we paid for it, the app/game should never be pulled unless something horrible happens. When you buy a game on the play station network or xbox live do they ever pull games or ever make them non functional? In a perfect world we would have everything we purchased forever. I still have Tetris on Nes and it still works. Why can't Apple do that?
     
  2. Anonomation

    Anonomation 👮 Spam Police 🚓

    Xbox has had a record of pulling many games
    Ex: 3D Marble Blast Ultra
    From my perspective, I think that game shouldn't be pulled although should be compatible with all versions of the OS that are able to run it, as there a ton of games that are unable to be played due to no more support.
     
  3. psj3809

    psj3809 Moderator

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    #3 psj3809, Sep 3, 2014
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2014
    I think if people don't backup their ipas then they can take a share of the blame. With so many apple products etc coming out you can't expect games to be constantly updated when you buy them for say 99c. If devs make money they'll keep doing updates. Again if they don't due to people waiting for price drops/games to be free then devs will obviously give up on flogging the dead horse

    Some games I play aren't on the App Store but I reinstall them via iTunes. Again with cloud backups (eg Mega where you get 50 gig free) it's crazy if people don't back up their games

    Look at gridlee (mame). Second that was on the App Store I backed up that IPA for ever so I can install it on different devices. Have to have that one !
     
  4. coolpepper43

    coolpepper43 👮 Spam Police 🚓

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    I can understand if a game/app was not successful and was old for a dev to not make updates but what about game pulls? Little Luca works completely fine. It was released a while ago but why pull the game? Also you say to back everything up. What if I have thousands of games? How can I manage that? Why can't Apple just keep it on the servers to download? It's not like they are hurting for money. Also they are in the storage business. I don't get it.
     
  5. psj3809

    psj3809 Moderator

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    Checking myitunes folder its 70 gig worth of ipa's ! It was even bigger before but i tend to copy the large ipa files into the 'cloud' and keep the smaller ones on my machine.

    I thought you had to pay a yearly fee to Apple to be a dev and feature your app on the app store, is it $200-500 ? I had a friend who released an app, didnt do well at all, after a year he declined to pay the yearly subscription so the app was taken down.

    But also email the dev, could be a good reason, could be a new improved version coming out or they've sold the code/assets/game to another company so they pull it.

    Yep Little Luca is a decent game but there could be a reasonable explanation why they pulled it.

    I have thousands of games and you can manage it, like i say 50 gig free with Mega, other services you get free space. I pay $3 a month (and you can use your itunes credit) to Pogoplug who offer unlimited storage space so for the sake of about $40 a year everythings backed up.

    Plus with external storage devices being so cheap i dont think people have an excuse. Mentioned it before i learnt the hard way, i had a hard drive failure so lost everything, had to pay a lot of money to recover the data on my hard drive so thats why i'm so pro-backing up.

    Yes Apple could keep it on the servers as they've got money but one reason they have money are things like the payments from devs. If a games not doing well then it may not be worth for the dev to keep it on the app store. After the initial first week or two after launch i can imagine many of the games then hardly make much money the following year/months etc

    But surely just backup your favourites just in case, eg for me Gridlee etc. Plus dont people sync to itunes anyway so it'll keep a backup of your game etc. I've had a few ios devices so everythings backed up so when i get a new device i can restore easily so its like its the same on my new device
     
  6. coolpepper43

    coolpepper43 👮 Spam Police 🚓

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    Thanks for that great reply. Ya, I'm going to have to backup like you said. Here is my problem with the whole pulling thing. If the game was a paid game and Apple gets a cut of when I purchased it, plus Apple dev fees, than I think Apple should have the morality to still let you have something that you paid for.
     
  7. psj3809

    psj3809 Moderator

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    Yeah i totally see your point. I mean surely the more games they have on the app store its better for them as a sale means they get what is it, 30 or 40%.

    But like i say apps like Gridlee i have to backup as if i get a new phone in the future i HAVE to have that app ! (Got quite a few other favourites as well). Think i'm also into the habit due to downloading all those hidden emulator ones which disappear quite quicky.

    On the other hand if an indie dev gives up or gets another job and moves on they dont want to be responsible for future updates or people emailing them about issues so might take down the app because of that. You should email the dev and see what they say
     
  8. Glorkbot

    Glorkbot Well-Known Member

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    I have a few old apps that I really like that don't work properly anymore. Some are completely unusable and some just crash a lot. Some have been removed from the store and are no longer available, some are still on the store but just haven't been updated for the newer devices & operating systems.

    It's disappointing, but you can't expect devs to put a lot of time (or any time at all) into supporting something that no one is buying anymore.

    Eventually NONE of the apps we have today will run. At some point they will all end up incompatible with whatever device we use in the future.
     
  9. psj3809

    psj3809 Moderator

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    Dont think that'll happen. At some point in the future (5 or 10 years ?) there'll be some sort of emulator

    I remember thinking back in the 80's what will happen with my old ZX Spectrum games on tape, yes kids - tapes ! Years later i couldnt believe it when i found in a magazine an advert for a cd rom full or images of all these Speccy games which ran on an emulator on my PC.

    Same for all these classic Gameboy (.gb) or NES (.nes) games or many many others available for emulators. Look at DOSBOX, that helps run old dos games from years ago. Look at the arcade, huge great machines died a death, then years later they're available to download to run on an arcade MAME emulator, amazing !

    I cant believe these old .ipa files will just die, reckon at some point in the future (not for a while !) there'll be some sort of emulator where you can load up an .ipa file. I dont believe these old classics will die.

    Every device in the past whether its a massive old arcade machine, an 80's home computer, a late 1970's cartridge Atari 2600, all the games are eventually kept and can still run on so many platforms today.
     
  10. Glorkbot

    Glorkbot Well-Known Member

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    You're probably right about that, with future emulators these old games could stay alive. But in the meantime, there are apps that are dying RIGHT NOW.

    I have old games that no longer run on the current iOS. They used to run perfectly, now they just crash.
     
  11. oldsnake

    oldsnake Well-Known Member

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    Every new OS breaks games,and this unfortunately happen 17 September with iOS 8 again,I've lot of game that doesn't work anymore,simply the devs not update them,I've also lot of games that are not be updated for iPhone 5,since there an Apple Guidelines,Apple need to use an hard fist,e-mail the devs that Apps in the store need to be updated at last every year after new OS,or they pulled out..
     
  12. psj3809

    psj3809 Moderator

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    Disagree with that. Theres lots of users with old devices, if lots of games which would work on their device are pulled (as theyre not ios8 compatible) then thats unfair for those users.

    In an ideal world every app would work on every type of phone and ios. But say youre a dev and you have an old game on the app store, its hardly making sales, say $3 a week, are you really going to get it working for ios8 or bother doing some special widescreen change for iphone 6/6s etc ?

    If Apple say 'upgrade these apps or we'll delete them' you'll get thousands and thousands of apps disappearing from the app store.

    When an apps 99c and hardly makes any money as it say came out 3 years ago devs arent going to keep updating it are they ? Remove those apps and all the users who still have older devices wont be happy
     
  13. oldsnake

    oldsnake Well-Known Member

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    I know,but see in the store Games that I pay and still now on €5.99,and up,never be update and not work with iOS 7,what you think,lot of new users with iOS 7,and an iPhone 5,5s buy a game that will never work..
     
  14. psj3809

    psj3809 Moderator

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    #14 psj3809, Sep 11, 2014
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2014
    It was the same with a fair few PC games in the early 90's. Upgrade your hardware and your old games wouldnt always work that well.

    With so many 1000's of games and a lot of personal favourites i know if i upgrade phones or iOS theres a chance some old favourites wont work. I've already got two favourites i love i cant play on ios7 anymore as the dev wont update them (he has in the app store text that it only works ios 6 and below).

    But again you've only paid a few dollars for these games. Its the same for say videos-dvd when everyone moved to dvd and you were stuck with lots of favourite videos that were never released on dvd so you had to try and do it yourself or basically get rid.

    You just cant expect old games to be updated every year when a new iOS appears, specially when many of the games are basically 'dead' as they dont make anymore sales. You cant honestly expect those to be updated

    Frustrating of course but with iphones/iOS changing yearly this will keep happening. The only way to do it is to buy a cheap 'older' device as a 'backup' in order to play these old games. But surely you've played these old games to death and can move on ?

    I bought tons of games in the 80's. 5 years later they were all redundant as companies stopped making games for 8 bits as everyone had moved onto 16 bits. Years later those 16 bit games were all redundant as everyone moved onto consoles (and so on and so on)

    I do get your point but again i cant believe any dev will keep updating their 99c app from a few years ago IF they dont seem to think they can sell many. No way can Apple 'force' devs to do this, the devs will then say 'yep take it off the app store then'.
     
  15. oldsnake

    oldsnake Well-Known Member

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    You're right,i play games on PS3,PS4,but it's from The beginning of Apple,with every year New devices,iPad,etc..i found The only way to take all The device instead of "sell" The old And buy The New One,i've lot of iPhones with different OS,different games,and use the newer devices for high games,like BIOSHOCK for example,the good point it's that now,with iPhone 6,6 plus,the apps/games won't need an update,they're Full Screen"obvious that some games will be especially updated for them,use metal api,but why it's not be apply last two years to the iPhone 5/5s as well? But it's a starting point I think,the OS problem instead it's another think..I support a lot small indie developers,I beta test they games,give support to them,so,I really understand you're point 
     
  16. kmacleod

    kmacleod Well-Known Member
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    You guys realize that you can re-download games from Apple even after they've been pulled, right?
     
  17. Anonomation

    Anonomation 👮 Spam Police 🚓

    That isn't necessarily true, I've had apps disappear from my purchased list. Even if it could be downloaded, will it work?
     
  18. kmacleod

    kmacleod Well-Known Member
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    Very few - the only one I can think of is the NES emulator that got snuck on sometime in 2010.

    And no, it won't necessarily work, but that's often why it was pulled in the first place. Developers SHOULD update their apps to work, but they often don't. It is unfortunate, but if there isn't any money in it, updating might just be too time consuming.
     
  19. cloudpuff

    cloudpuff Well-Known Member

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    Many devs have several games on the AppStore and if they were forced to update them each year when a new so comes out it could impact their current titles, I mean they are gonna have less time, less money etc to work on content updates and bug fixes for their newer releases etc.


    As long as the AppStore description is accurate about which ios version the game works with it's fine with me. And even on the occasions some don't work, apple give refunds so the buyer isn't out of pocket.
     
  20. smegly

    smegly Well-Known Member

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    I'm not so sure about many iOS games resurfacing in the future. There's some barrier in portable gaming, maybe about as far back as 10 years, from getting proper fan treatment. That has even been true with top shelf NDS games and certainly would apply moreso to iOS games where many of the best are not widely purchased and are obscure even at the height of their success. Getting a bad 2600 game from 30 years ago is easier than it's going to be to get a lot of good iOS games a few years from now.
     

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