

EA Killing Rock Band For iPhone, Game Will Be Unplayable For Current Owners - dusing
http://toucharcade.com/2012/05/02/original-ios-rock-band-shutting-down-at-the-end-of-may/

======
ceejayoz
The really inexcusable part is that the game is still available for purchase,
with no indication in the description that it's about to self-destruct.

Hopefully Apple nails them to the wall on this.

~~~
daenz
I had to see it with my own eyes:

<http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rock-band/id333307161?mt=8>

~~~
ConstantineXVI
Even better, it hasn't been updated since 2010. That implies EA planned to
pull the plug when they shipped it.

~~~
eropple
Not necessarily. They could have a messaging thing built in that just pulled a
message from a server.

~~~
bluehex
Sure, thats true for the message their popping. But it also means the kill
switch was in there since then. I guess it doesn't necessarily mean they
intended to cancel it from the start though, if this is standard practice for
all their apps.

~~~
endersshadow
I think the "kill switch" is that the server that it connects to when it boots
up will be gone. It's not like it'll self destruct on the phone--you'll still
be able to launch the app, it just won't connect to the server. Therefore, you
won't be able to play.

The same thing would happen with, say, Draw Something, if a tornado came
through and wiped out their data center. They wouldn't have built a purposeful
"kill switch," it's just a de facto one because the server would then be
embedded into a tree somewhere.

------
jaysonelliot
As apps move to the cloud, record albums turn into subscriptions, and books
become bits on a Kindle, I fear this sort of thing will become more
commonplace.

Sometimes intentionally, like this example, sometimes you'll lose access to
things you thought you had bought as companies merge or expire, or through
good old-fashioned screw-ups.

I can run a program on my thirty-year-old Apple computer today just as I could
when I bought it, even though the company who made the software may have
disappeared in the '90s. Records I bought as a kid are still here, and no one
can edit or "deauthorize" the books on my shelf.

I wonder if kids born now will grow up without any expectation that buying any
form of software or media entitles them to keep and use what they've bought
anytime they want?

~~~
cdrxndr
What's crazy is that kids today won't have music passed down to them per this
trend. The license to your iTunes music collection ends with your life as per
the Apple ToS (seriously).

I don't want to buy licenses. Can we please buy things that are real (like
bits, real).

~~~
tomjen3
Nobody gives a shit what the tos say. People will share their music.

------
0x0
Wow, that's pretty insane. Wonder how Apple will treat EA's iOS developer
license if they keep doing it like that.

Otherwise you could dodge the whole "apps that are 'trial' versions" are
prohibited... Release the app for a small sum, pull it after a while and
release a sequel!

Or will this be another case of "some developers are more equal than others"?

~~~
maximilianburke
Apple's taking a 30% cut of $a-lot-of-money that passes through their App
Store because of EA's games, I don't think they're going to rescind their
ability to develop for iOS.

~~~
Perceval
Yes, but Apple is always willing to prioritize users over developers, which is
why Apple is constantly pissing off developers by making them jump through
extra hoops. Apple is not going to yank EA's apps, but it's likely that EA is
going to get a call from Apple.

~~~
aiscott
However Apple doesn't put users before dollars in the case of the kindle app
and the recent dropbox debacle, regarding the whole in app purchase crap.

~~~
Karunamon
I think what he means is that Apple has no qualms about calling a company's
bluff when they're breaking appstore policies.

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creade
EA apparently just retracted:
[http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57426660-93/ea-not-
killing-...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57426660-93/ea-not-killing-rock-
band-for-ios-after-all/)

~~~
uncoder0
Doesn't really work when it is posted in the FAQ. This appears to be a poor
cover-up or a pretty big internal misunderstanding.

<http://i.imgur.com/eTwHH.png>

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mikerice
If you owned it, you can go to your transactions page and issue a refund. It
takes around 4 hours, and it comes out of EA's pockets!

~~~
josereyes
Is this on iOS? If so, how does one get to the transactions page?

~~~
devindotcom
It's in iTunes IIRC. Sorry, don't know exactly where, but it's in there. It
won't be anywhere logical, I'm guessing.

~~~
lucaspiller
<http://www.ehow.com/how_5590751_refund-itunes.html>

It only works for transactions made in the last 90 days though.

------
jyap
I tried to find out more from their Support pages but only found this FAQ:
[https://help.ea.com/article/will-rock-band-no-longer-be-
avai...](https://help.ea.com/article/will-rock-band-no-longer-be-available-on-
mobile-devices)

From the page:

Will ROCK BAND no longer be available on mobile devices?

Updated: 5/2/2012

I've heard ROCK BAND will not be available after May 31. Is this true?

Yes, we will be suspending support of ROCK BAND after May 31 and focusing
resources on other EA titles. We thank everyone for playing ROCK BAND, and we
encourage you to explore some of the other exciting titles in our mobile line-
up.

Can I still play ROCK BAND if I've already downloaded it?

The ROCK BAND servers will be live through May 31, 2012. If you have already
downloaded the game, you can continue to play until then.

~~~
gergles
They've now memory-holed this page.

~~~
schiffern
No surprise. Their official story is that it was an error.

[http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57426660-93/ea-not-
killing-...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57426660-93/ea-not-killing-rock-
band-for-ios-after-all/)

------
jyap
I can only guess this is because of 2 reasons (which come down to cost):

    
    
      - Song licensing deals expire with unfavorable renewal costs
      - Server and other costs outweigh incoming revenue
    

Either way live by the content, die by the content.

~~~
0x0
Soo... does that mean other platforms also expire when they can't be bothered
to support a game? For example, a playstation version? What about guitar hero?

(Why would the servers be required anyways? To stream content? Couldn't
content be downloaded on first run (which means you only need to fund a
server&pipe big enough for new purchases))

~~~
Tiktaalik
There been instances where games re-released on new platforms have been
modified because the creators were unable or unwilling to re-license certain
content again. One example that comes to mind is Sega removing songs from The
Offspring from Crazy Taxi when they released a version of the game for Xbox
Live Arcade. The original arcade version also featured real branded
destinations, like KFC, and these have been turned into generic versions.

~~~
ConstantineXVI
I can't say I've ever heard of /existing/ copies of games disabled when a
license expires.

------
jacquesm
I'm sure a blanket refund issued to all the current owners of the game will
quickly explain to EA why this is a terrible idea. They'll survive, but
they'll be wiser.

------
hack_edu
Apple and EA didn't need more PR drama. Welcome to the yet another battle in
the war of (signed) 'Apps' vs our old notions of software.

Plus, EA certainly doesn't need any more bad publicity after Mass Effect 3 and
all their release day DLC drama.

------
robomartin
Someone brought-up an interesting point: The thought of your entire iBooks or
Kindle book library evaporating is a sobering one.

Will all of this be around in twenty or thirty years? I have physical books
that are nearly 100 years old in my library. They don't require a third party
to exist in order to be usable.

These kinds of things make you re-think some of these ideas.

Another place where this happens much faster is power tools. I still have a
number of excellent power tools that are easily 15 to 20 years old. Sawzall,
drill, router, biscuit joiner, circular saw, etc.

All of them have a chord and are AC powered.

None of the battery powered tools I bought long ago are around. In some cases
the battery packs have been discontinued. In other cases the batteries went
bad and the replacement cost for the obsolete packs is just too high.

So, if you want to leave tools and books to your kids, you might want to
rethink what you are buying. It is possible to imagine that iBooks and Kindle
will not be around in 40 to 50 years.

Anyone know what the TOS say about this for both Apple and Amazon? Do you own
your books or have they become licenses that can go poof overnight?

~~~
frio
In the case of Amazon at least, the DRM on Kindle ebooks is ludicrously easy
to crack. Every book I purchase, I crack - both for self-preservation (the
removal of 1984 from every device it was installed on was worrying), and
because not being able to share frustrates me.

More than games, music, etc., not being able to share books drives me _crazy_.
Everyone in my flat has a small library; we share our books between eachother.
When we started getting Kindles, that was stymied: after reading the first
book in the Void trilogy on paper, I was unable to let my flatmate (who read
the first book after me) read the second book - because I bought it on Kindle.
That was... well, lame.

So now, I manage my Kindle with Calibre. Every book I buy gets cracked.

~~~
runjake
Either you are buying off a different Amazon store or there's some new Topaz
DRM decryption scheme. As far as I know, most current Kindle books aren't
crackable.

~~~
freehunter
I've had one Kindle book recently that Calibre wasn't able to crack
automatically. It was a Kindle print replica textbook which I bought to read
on my Touchpad in class. Turns out when they say "PC/Mac/iPad Compatible",
they really mean ONLY PC/Mac/iPad. Android Kindle apps can't read them. I
spent the entire weekend cracking their various obfuscation methods to find
out it was a DRM'd PDF wrapped in a Palm Database format container. When I got
it completely stripped, it was a straight PDF with no loss of functionality.

Could they have sold it as a PDF with their normal Kindle DRM? Yes. Would this
have been sufficient enough to keep piracy to acceptable levels? Yes. Any
miniscule amount of DRM is enough. It's like putting WEP on your router. It
will keep out the riff raff (which is good enough for most cases) but anyone
who is determined to break your encryption will figure out how to do it. With
something like an ebook, I would imagine that 9:1 sales to piracy rate would
be realistic, and that's well within acceptable range in my opinion.

------
iamandrus
Doesn't this violate Apple's policy? If not, has this happened in the past?

~~~
smackfu
Practically, it doesn't seem like there is any way to force a company to keep
their servers running to support a game forever, no matter what the policy is.

~~~
ceejayoz
They could threaten EA's other apps, though, or perhaps refund all purchases
for the game.

~~~
tibbon
I think if you have an abusive app developer, its within reason to ban them
from the platform.

~~~
j_baker
Of course, if that app developer is a major player like EA, I would imagine
the definition of "abusive" suddenly becomes much more liberal.

------
Karunamon
If I had to put a valid reason to this instead of simply declaring that EA are
dicks (which is still true but...), I'd guess that the rights on the songs
expired and they are no longer legally allowed to distribute them.

Think about it. It would be even more scummy of them to leave the app up for
download with no way to pull the songs required to play the game down from the
cloud.

It's shitty either way, especially if you just bought the app but, I don't see
a good way out of it.

~~~
smackfu
There is a middle ground. They can pull the app from the store, but it is
still playable on people devices. It's not great, but it's a lot better than
"you can't play this game anymore even though it's installed."

And it seems fairly ridiculous that EA would not get rights that last for the
life of a single product. They've been doing song licensing for 10+ years now.

~~~
masterzora
If the songs are in the cloud that middle ground doesn't work.

~~~
jlawer
The songs aren't on the cloud, as the game works perfectly on an ipod touch
when wifi is disabled.

The problem is games requiring "authentication servers" to do anything. The
general thought has been when these servers were removed the last act of the
company would be to release an update that disabled the requirement of the
servers... however this has never really happened.

It frustrates me as thanks to tools like DosBox I am still playing games on my
Mac that I first played years ago (Master of Orion 2 specifically). There is a
distinct possibility that every game you purchase will no longer work in 5
years between DRM'd executable, proprietary platforms and authentication
servers.

~~~
Karunamon
Don't you have to pull the songs down at least once though?

~~~
chc
That's not a problem for existing users. I don't think anybody would criticize
EA for stopping sales of the game — it's the idea of killing off already
purchased copies that's so galling.

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ctdonath
Remember some years back Belkin sold a router that would randomly replace web
page requests with redirects to ads for their products? I haven't purchased
any Belkin products since. I may not purchase any more EA products for similar
reasons.

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AJ007
Quick, buy it now so you can get in on the class action.

~~~
ctdonath
Why, so you can get credit toward a future EA game purchase equal or lesser
than the purchase price of this game?

Or [squints suspiciously] are you a class-action lawyer?

