I made a game in 2009, it was quite popular, got a bunch of positive reviews, I gave it away for free.
I had to keep giving Apple £100/year just to let people keep downloading the game for free. At some point I tried recompiling it for a newer iOS, and I get hundreds of message about depricated APIs that I had to change to get it accepted by Apple. Instead I let it drop.
I can't even put a copy online for people to download, the game is just dead and gone thanks to Apple. I can still run Windows games from 20 year ago and with DOSbox, DOS games from 30 years ago. My own iOS game on the other hand is dead, never to be revived.
This is a pretty fascinating anecdote to me, as I preserve software as long as I possibly can (still having boxes of games like Marathon, Myst, Spectre, SimCity for example). I had a strong feeling that the ultra-closed App Store would result in extremely ephemeral software. It's very difficult to preserve software that is so "encumbered" and reliant on the continued distribution by a 3rd party who sets all the rules.
If your interested seeing it continue to run and are up for selling it message me. I buy old ios apps that still trickle in a small amount of sales and keep them running.
>I can't even put a copy online for people to download, the game is just dead and gone thanks to Apple. I can still run Windows games from 20 year ago and with DOSbox, DOS games from 30 years ago.
On the other hand, thanks to this kind of "burning bridges" users are not tied to 20 year old compatibility kludges and legacy BS in the OS and libs.
>My own iOS game on the other hand is dead, never to be revived.
Which, App Store or not is the fate of tons of games -- most 8bit/16bit era games we have, we just have thanks to emulators.
I don't mind fixing it up if you still want to publish it. Put it on github and post a link to the thread? Or you can email me at lnanek at gmail. I need an app store account for my own apps anyway.
Those probably are the only valid options. But let's face it. Unless the game was extremely popular, or has a cult following, it is rather unlikely that anyone will want to pick it up and run with it.
I play board games and there are games nowadays that require an app to play (see for example Alchemists). I've argued that this is a bad idea since at some point the apps will probably stop working as we see happening in iOS 11. But people always argue back that someone will be sure to create a version of the app to keep it going. I may be a cynic, but I think that is incredibly naive to believe that will happen.
I used to have a board game or two that required a VHS tape. Sure, VCRs exist and can be found, but it’s such an outdated technology that people aren’t going to search them out. I know there are some games that require LaserDisc too, same thing but even worse. It’s not necessarily a new development.
Probably won't happen if he just throws it out on github, but if he can show and prove that it "was quite popular, got a bunch of positive reviews" somehow AND gave some brief overview of the project and effort required to update it then the chance is higher.
I think you stopped reading before you reached this part:
>At some point I tried recompiling it for a newer iOS, and I get hundreds of message about depricated APIs that I had to change to get it accepted by Apple.
I had to keep giving Apple £100/year just to let people keep downloading the game for free. At some point I tried recompiling it for a newer iOS, and I get hundreds of message about depricated APIs that I had to change to get it accepted by Apple. Instead I let it drop.
I can't even put a copy online for people to download, the game is just dead and gone thanks to Apple. I can still run Windows games from 20 year ago and with DOSbox, DOS games from 30 years ago. My own iOS game on the other hand is dead, never to be revived.