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[Lalalandia]

Sad that Microsoft Windows has better BC than Apple Iphone.

It's not sad it's by design. People complain about the bloat that comes with each new Windows release but the fact is a significant chunk of that is multiple copies of the same dlls for backwards compatibility purposes. MS only deprecated 16 bit apps with Win7 for flips sake despite every cpu since the 386 supporting 32bit operation. MS O/S revenue stream is built off telling business customers that they need to update to the latest O/S for security and feature enhancements but don't worry all of your crappy ancient line of business apps will work just fine*.

Apple's method has always been to flip customers the bird and say 'the new shit is better, deal'. It's why Adobe moved to Windows as the lead platform for Photoshop et al as they were pissed when Apple deprecated the old OS 9 Cocoa API. There is merit to this approach as it's why OSX has such a nice unified look and feel and in particular why it scales so well to arbitrary resolutions but it carries a lot of cost for app developers and businesses. MS for example ha to support 4 or 5 APIs for drawing apps on the Windows desktop which is why you have things like the on screen keyboard not automatically popping up in desktop mode for text fields when it does for Win8 apps. The Win8 API has 'hinting' built in (ie cursor in text field, pop OSK) but WinGUI, VB and the myriad other methods do not offer 'hinting' so the OSK never pops.

*Not entirely I've seen a rough 5-10% incompatibility between XP apps and Win7 for example.

 

[AlphaTwo00]

With the 4 inch screens, you needed to "opt in" with the right launch image.
Otherwise, it would give you black borders and not attempt any sort of scaling.

I think it's cool how Apple did the scaling/downscaling voodoo with the 6/6+, but it would have been nice to have the option of just having black borders if you wanted to avoid both scaling and re-work. Though, I admittedly am not sure how intrusive the borders would be in practice..

The black borders actually still failed a few games. I recall that certain coordinates were deemed to be untouched, and that scaling for the 4inch screen actually didn't offset it correctly. It worked for a lot of apps, but some will fall through the crack depending on how it was coded.

 

[Imbarkus]

Ghost Trick runs all the way until you first make a move, then just a hard crash.

I should pick it up for DS, I guess.

On the plus side, my no-longer-available, non-F2P copy of Bejeweled 2 still runs fine.

 

[M3d10n]

It's not sad it's by design. People complain about the bloat that comes with each new Windows release but the fact is a significant chunk of that is multiple copies of the same dlls for backwards compatibility purposes. MS only deprecated 16 bit apps with Win7 for flips sake despite every cpu since the 386 supporting 32bit operation. MS O/S revenue stream is built off telling business customers that they need to update to the latest O/S for security and feature enhancements but don't worry all of your crappy ancient line of business apps will work just fine*.

Apple's method has always been to flip customers the bird and say 'the new shit is better, deal'. It's why Adobe moved to Windows as the lead platform for Photoshop et al as they were pissed when Apple deprecated the old OS 9 Cocoa API. There is merit to this approach as it's why OSX has such a nice unified look and feel and in particular why it scales so well to arbitrary resolutions but it carries a lot of cost for app developers and businesses. MS for example ha to support 4 or 5 APIs for drawing apps on the Windows desktop which is why you have things like the on screen keyboard not automatically popping up in desktop mode for text fields when it does for Win8 apps. The Win8 API has 'hinting' built in (ie cursor in text field, pop OSK) but WinGUI, VB and the myriad other methods do not offer 'hinting' so the OSK never pops.

*Not entirely I've seen a rough 5-10% incompatibility between XP apps and Win7 for example.

Just a correction: 32-bit Windows still supports 16-bit apps. It's the 64-bit versions that don't (that includes XP 64-bits) and that's actually due to hardware limitations: x64 CPUs have two operational modes, long mode (64-bits) and legacy mode (32-bits). In long mode the CPU has full compatibility with 32-bit code (which is why 64-bit Windows can run 32-bit programs) but has only limited 16-bit support (only protected mode, no real mode or v86 instructions) which is not enough to run DOS-era software.

 

[Pachimari]

Do any of you know if there's a support line of something I can reach, to get an answer as to if Candy Crush Saga will work on iPad 1 again?

I'm really bummed for my father.

 

[Imbarkus]

Do any of you know if there's a support line of something I can reach, to get an answer as to if Candy Crush Saga will work on iPad 1 again?

I'm really bummed for my father.

You can go to the App Store and usually find a link to the dev web page, or just Google King Games. Send 'em an email, see what happens.

I emailed Atari a couple of years ago asking for iCade Mobile support for Atari's Greatest Hits and heard "we'll take it under advisement."

I emailed them again recently asking why the game is now broken and heard nothing at all.

With King, your problem will be the reverse as with Atari (hellooooo? anyone heeeere?) in that they are a giant company awash in money who will probably ignore you or simply tell you it's not supported yadda yadda. Sorry.

 

[Imbarkus]

I hate to admit it but I'm afraid these abandoned apps make a good argument for the F2P model, in that trying to maintain and optimize a consistent revenue stream keeps these projects and teams afloat after the game's release, continuing to support them.

 

[M3d10n]

Actually, it's people who try to play mobile games as they play console games who'll get burned the most. The mobile market works more like the PC market, where there's a different number of hardware and software combinations, than the console market.

It's just that the IOS ecosystem sorta looked like a console one in its early years due to the small amount of different hardware, but that veil eventually fell and were seeing it's true colors more often now that the new OS versions formed a large enough pile.

 

[Imbarkus]

I'm fine with new hardware, new standards breaking old software. Just a part of life. Hell I'm even used to that from Apple, being a longtime Mac user.

But if you're selling an app in the store still, it better be able to run right on the latest OS and the latest hardware, at the very least. I don't like it any more when Steam sells me something broken or only supported on XP or something either.

Apple's not prepared to re-certify thousands of apps every time they release an OS, but won't that just eventually mean the store is populated with a bunch of garbage?

I'm not sure the one-star "it doesn't work" reviews are going to do the job.

 

[epmode]

I've found tablet gaming to be a nice diversion but stuff like this is why I stay with a PC. In the rare instance that a Windows update breaks a game, you can usually count on the community to figure out a way to get it working. Worst case scenario, you can always dual boot to the old OS.

So yes, I'm still annoyed that Ghost Trick is broken.

 

[ArtHands]

I think the entire Chaos Ring series are broken

 

[Datschge]

mentioned earlier, but ghost trick works fine if you restore from backup or did a straight upgrade of firmware.

fresh install breaks it.

So don't uninstall that game!

Aww damn, one of the few bigger apps I deleted since I needed space for the over the air update and the app showed up in my list of bought apps...

 

[Diablohead]

I think the entire Chaos Ring series are broken

damn you are right, just tried booting up chaos rings 2 and it stops on a black screen trying to load.

 

[Mario]

I found about it. We supplied a fix to Adult Swim ages ago. They sometimes take a long time to bring out updates (they sat on a Giant Boulder of Death update for a couple of months at the start of the year).

So, it has been fixed, but not sure when that update will go live. Sorry

Update for Robot Unicorn Attack 2 including this fix went live today.

 

[Corgi]

Update for Robot Unicorn Attack 2 including this fix went live today.

Feel like you and a few other devs could chime in, but for oldies, is there ever a financial incentive to keep support of your old games in terms of minimal upkeep of working for the newer iOS versions?


Do old games even make decent cash when put on sale during the holidays or something?


I guess it depends on if your game is 'online' with active users and still generates traffic...

but there doesn't seem to be that much incentive for a relatively small dev group to update some offline game, when they have other projects at hand.

 

[Emarv]

Is there a reason why Apple would even allow the selling of $15+ game by a major publisher that did not make it past the Start screen, like TWEWY?

It's a game that is often featured in "app collections" and stuff. How is this allowed?

 

[Falk]

We collectively baked this pie as an industry (and as an entire culture or civilization, really)

Only fair to reap the rewards.

 

[Michael F. Assbender]

Do any of you know if there's a support line of something I can reach, to get an answer as to if Candy Crush Saga will work on iPad 1 again?

I'm really bummed for my father.

He can't afford a new iPad, but how about maybe a used one off eBay? Or a mini? Or could you and other family members maybe go in together to get one as a gift?

 

[EatinOlives]

I've spent money on exactly one game, Ace Attorney 5: Dual Destinies, and even on that one I feel regret getting it on iOS because it's a ticking time bomb. I spent $15 on a game with an expiration date. I was considering getting the DLC, which I heard is really good, but I don't want to put in any more money into the iPhone as a gaming platform for that reason.

 

[More_Badass]

Anyone mention Helsing's Fire? You can navigate the menus but start a level and it's a color filled screen. Devs are working on a fix

 

[Mario]

Feel like you and a few other devs could chime in, but for oldies, is there ever a financial incentive to keep support of your old games in terms of minimal upkeep of working for the newer iOS versions?


Do old games even make decent cash when put on sale during the holidays or something?


I guess it depends on if your game is 'online' with active users and still generates traffic...

but there doesn't seem to be that much incentive for a relatively small dev group to update some offline game, when they have other projects at hand.

It really depends on the game and the complexity of the issue.

For example, in the last 18 months I think it was that Apple made it mandatory for any update to support Retina displays natively. Depending on how someone built their game and the involved assets, it is potentially non trivial to add that which actually disincentivizes devs from doing any updates to address other stuff. The older a game gets without an update, the harder it is to eventually update.

Beyond things like that, it probably comes down to the cost of producing an update versus the revenue uplift you'd receive from doing an update, with some consideration for consumer experience and opportunity cost thrown in. A lot of smaller devs just aren't going to be making the money to justify it.

There are certainly games that we have abandoned due to a combination of the above.

However, sometimes enough work and opportunity can stack up to warrant the effort. For example, we have major updates already submitted for Flick Kick Football, Flick Kick Football Kickoff, Flick Kick Field Goal, and Flick Kick Field Goal Kickoff. Those games are roughly 4 years old and haven't had meaningful updates for a while but collectively bring in "tens of thousands" of dollars a month. That is more than enough to warrant these updates which are covering off crash/stability bugs, UI fixes/improvements, Retina/6/6+ native support, additional content/modes for free versions, updating some underlying SDKs, adding App Previews, and a full set of localized store assets.

On top of making consumers happy, such an update also has the opportunity for re-engagement and also an improved shot at minor featuring. So there is potential upside there, if you have the install base.

Hope that provides some insight.

 

[hongcha]

I think the entire Chaos Ring series are broken

Hopefully they fix this soon! I have 1, Omega and 2 on my Ipad Air. In the meantime I can play all 4 games on my Vita or Vita TV, thanks to the excellent Chaos Rings III Prequel Trilogy.

 

[Bebpo]

Hopefully they fix this soon! I have 1, Omega and 2 on my Ipad Air. In the meantime I can play all 4 games on my Vita or Vita TV, thanks to the excellent Chaos Rings III Prequel Trilogy.

They don't seem to be in a rush considering it's been like this for 3 months now. I really wonder if they'll ever bother getting them working. Maybe to coincide with the English release of CRIII since they have to figure they are losing sales of people jumping in at CRIII and wanting to play the older games after.

 

[Imbarkus]

Update for Robot Unicorn Attack 2 including this fix went live today.

Was going to edit, but it looks like I spared the game from being added to OP in the first place, so karma worked everything out.

I have a few other games, mostly old Popcap stuff, that isn't available on the store anymore. One of them, Candy Train, no longer works.

Is it paranoid of me to wonder if it just broke, or if some of these delisted apps don't get a "kill update?"

On top of making consumers happy, such an update also has the opportunity for re-engagement and also an improved shot at minor featuring. So there is potential upside there, if you have the install base.

It seems to me this kind of effort strengthens the overall brand of the pubs and devs involved, too. A general PR marketing spend, keeping yourself on the "good guy" side of the business.

The curated platforms are working to keep this stuff clean at least in terms of policing, in order to foster the trust of the digital ecosystem in general. Given all the class actions Apple and Amazon and Google have recently had to address regarding in-app purchases, it doesn't also look good to offer broken games and apps in the storefront.

I guess any action on the storefront side would necessitate updates in a punitive way that devs wouldn't like. But, like the IAP thing, they'll end up with it if they push it too far, i.e. Squenix.

 

[Fuu]

By the way, currently in the Chaos Rings series only CR2 is broken on iOS 8. Both Chaos Rings 1 and Omega were patched in November. I presume a fix for CR2 will pop up before CR3 is released in English.

Patched:

Still broken:

 

[AlphaTwo00]

Do any of you know if there's a support line of something I can reach, to get an answer as to if Candy Crush Saga will work on iPad 1 again?

I'm really bummed for my father.

never. You cannot sign binaries targeting ios 6 and lower anymore. Sorry. It's over.

 

[Mario]

Is it paranoid of me to wonder if it just broke, or if some of these delisted apps don't get a "kill update?"

I'd probably put that down to paranoia. Delisted apps will be delisted because they either don't want to support them or the license to publish them has expired. In either case there is no need or value to cripple existing copies.

I guess it could be imagined that a publisher might cripple one game to push users onto a new one. But even then it seems the better strategy would be to keep the older on alive and upsell them on an ongoing basis, so I'm not convinced that is something publishers would actually do.

 

[Links_fantasy]

I really wanted to play Chaos Rings II on my iPhone 6 Plus but I can't. I also hate playing a lot of games with big black borders on them. It's made me just stick to smaller games on my iPhone. I'll play my long RPG's on my 3DS and Vita. Hopefully Square Enix releases the Vita Chaos Rings Trilogy on PSN, it's been out in Japan for a while.

 

[jimi_dini]

Just a correction: 32-bit Windows still supports 16-bit apps. It's the 64-bit versions that don't (that includes XP 64-bits) and that's actually due to hardware limitations: x64 CPUs have two operational modes, long mode (64-bits) and legacy mode (32-bits). In long mode the CPU has full compatibility with 32-bit code (which is why 64-bit Windows can run 32-bit programs) but has only limited 16-bit support (only protected mode, no real mode or v86 instructions) which is not enough to run DOS-era software.

It seems it's actually possible to go to v86 mode from 32 bit protected mode (legacy mode) from within 64 bit long mode (we need to go deeper.gif). What you can't do is switch to v86 mode directly from 64 bit long mode.

see this linux kernel patch http://v86-64.sourceforge.net/

Surely performance will somewhat suck (because way more context switches occur), but that's not the point.

And it seems there is also the VT-x CPU virtualization feature, which actually allows V86 directly from long mode. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization#Intel-VT-x

Which means Microsoft could have added proper backward compatibility, but simply did not want to.

 

[Imbarkus]

By the way, currently in the Chaos Rings series only CR2 is broken on iOS 8. Both Chaos Rings 1 and Omega were patched in November. I presume a fix for CR2 will pop up before CR3 is released in English.

Okay I updated OP and added the Helsing's Fire game someone mentioned I never heard of.

I'd probably put that down to paranoia. Delisted apps will be delisted because they either don't want to support them or the license to publish them has expired. In either case there is no need or value to cripple existing copies.

I guess it could be imagined that a publisher might cripple one game to push users onto a new one. But even then it seems the better strategy would be to keep the older on alive and upsell them on an ongoing basis, so I'm not convinced that is something publishers would actually do.

OK good to know. I suppose I have seen instances on Steam, say for the Doom BFG edition, where the previous game was simply delisted to support the new edition. Outcry didn't allow that to continue and I think the previous edition returned, didn't it?

I can't imagine the repercussions if a company was caught borking a previous release with an update to sell the new edition.

Sadly there is no one to lament that loss of many apps like Candy Train. This ecosystem is going to offer huge challenges to preservation of games.

We'll need gog.com for iOS one day...

 

[qualitydisc]

TWEWY is $18 for iphone and $20 for ipad, both have been broken since September.

That's awful. Considering how good the reviews for it were, and considering it's rated as one of Square Enix's best games of last gen, there is no excuse for them not to fix it ASAP.

 

[wrowa]

They don't seem to be in a rush considering it's been like this for 3 months now. I really wonder if they'll ever bother getting them working. Maybe to coincide with the English release of CRIII since they have to figure they are losing sales of people jumping in at CRIII and wanting to play the older games after.

If I remeber correctly, it took Capcom ages to update Ghost Trick back when iOS 7 released (yeah, that one broke the game too). They don't seem to invest more manpower that absolutely necessary to fix their old iOS games and I assume the same is true for SE. It's a huge shame, since those games have been sold for a premium price tag, however. I understand that neither Chaos Rings nor Ghost Trick are moneymakers at this point, but when you sell your games for 15€ to 20€ on the Appstore you should be responsible to update this games for an extended period of time.

In any case, I need to buy a new copy of Ghost Trick for the DS. I thought this wouldn't be necessary anymore, but apparently it's only a matter of time until Ghost Trick will remain unplayable on iOS - if Capcom decides to update it in the first place, that is. This game is too good to lose it like that.

 

[Fersis]

I upgraded my iPhone to a 6 and a few titles are broken or semi-functional, waiting for devs to update. I guess I have doubtful feelings that they all will get updated... I mean, business reality has changed for some of these devs/pubs, right?

So is there some sort of App Store garbage-sweep that moves through and double-checks the conditions that got some of these apps approved in the first place?
Maybe I can add more, anyone running into similar issues? Curious how widespread.

On our case, the latest xcode and iOS version broke a bunch of things. :0

 

[tanooki27]

how's dragon quest 8 on the 6+?

 

[Imbarkus]

Well I heard back from customersupport@atari.com for Atari's Greatest Hits, and they said they rolled out an update that would take care of the issue, but I'm not seeing any update for it.

How do I look up the date of the latest update, shown here:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ataris-greatest-hits/id422966028?mt=8

It is encouraging that someone is answering emails, though.

 

[SerTapTap]

Ghost trick is broken?! So glad I got the physical copy for DS after playing it on iOS. I know it's not a native iOS game but it's probably the best game I ever played on the platform.

 

[Fuu]

The Square-Enix games are taking a while but they've been upfront about what games are going to be fixed and those that aren't (Bloodmasque). Ghost Trick's situation is honestly the one that puzzles me the most, but since Capcom has not outright said they're dropping support in the description of the game on the App Store I wonder if they have any plans of fixing it, even if belated. The game surely deserves to keep reaching more people.

Well I heard back from customersupport@atari.com for Atari's Greatest Hits, and they said they rolled out an update that would take care of the issue, but I'm not seeing any update for it.

How do I look up the date of the latest update, shown here:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ataris-greatest-hits/id422966028?mt=8

It is encouraging that someone is answering emails, though.

Yeah, latest update for this one was Dec 10, 2012. I wonder if they mean they sent the update to Apple and it hasn't gone live yet? Sometimes it can take a while in the queue.

 

[Corgi]

at the same time, we really should be praising games that do get updates for the latest stuff.


Chinatown wars was just updated for the new phones, controller support and made universal. This is a game that came out in 2010! Remember being super impressed with it when i played it on my iphone 3g. You couldn't even multitask back then.

 

[AtticuSMT]

For anyone interested Final fantasy 1 and 2 are bugged to the point where no sound plays. This can be fixed by simply sliding up the control center (swipe from bottom up) and the sound kind of restarts its self and your good, just a mild annoyance.

 

[Fusilli Craig]

This is all pretty disconcerting to read.

As someone who was thinking about picking up an iPad during Boxing Week primarily for gaming, though browsing on the couch and digital comic reading are reasons as well, I'm second guessing whether it is a good idea.

How is this practice deemed okay? For companies that choose not to patch their games are refunds typically issued? I guess, as some of you have mentioned, it's not unlike PC gaming but I guess the timeline is just hard to swallow in this case (iOS updates are once a year?).

Nothing is permenant and I'm willing to be reasonable but I just can't think of another platform where I could purchase and play a game for a period and then have it broken by the platform holder and have the developers tell me they may never take the time to fix it.

I'm not really adding anything constructive to the conversation I guess I'm just curious how iOS gamers rationalize it to themselves?

 

[Fuu]

Good news, Chaos Rings 2 has been fixed. Whole series is working on iOS 8 now.

 

[CronoShot]

how's dragon quest 8 on the 6+?

It functions. Framerate is absolute garbage though, although that's almost entirely the game's fault rather than the hardware.

Also, Square is absolutely legendary for not updating their broken apps. Chrono Trigger for Android was broken when 4.3 came out, and it wasn't fixed until 10 months later.

 

[sörine]

I don't really game on my phone anymore but I haven't updated to iOS8 yet because I've heard it breaks Noise ES. Gotta have my nsfs for the gym.

 

[udivision]

Sorry to bump this, but does it become a legal issue for SE (or Apple) if TWEWY continues to be a $17 unplayable game? I don't think they give out refunds...

 

[bobawesome]

I forgot that I couldn't play TWEWY. Now I'm angry all over again.

 

[Fauve]

Somebody on Reddit(http://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/2k4jbs/possible_fix_for_apps_that_use_the_hardcoded made a fix for TWEWY (and maybe some other games), but it only works if you're jailbroken. I haven't tried it but some of the comments says it works.

 

[epmode]

Kickstart a Ghost Trick patch, Internet. Pls.

Or at least get us a PC release so I don't have to worry about keeping ancient hardware around.

 

[therapist]

Deathsmiles is broken as of 8.1.

if its the same company that makes the android versions, (GeeGee) they take FOREVER to get them working with new versions of android too.

 

[udivision]

Somebody on Reddit(http://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/2k4jbs/possible_fix_for_apps_that_use_the_hardcoded made a fix for TWEWY (and maybe some other games), but it only works if you're jailbroken. I haven't tried it but some of the comments says it works.

Hmm... I don't think it'd be worth jailbreaking...

 

[Ingueferroque]

Japanese-based mobile devs mostly seem to dump games on IOS and never patch them. Is this part of their culture or development structure?

Really sucks, I'd like to see Liberation Maiden get iPhone6+ support.

at the same time, we really should be praising games that do get updates for the latest stuff.


Chinatown wars was just updated for the new phones, controller support and made universal. This is a game that came out in 2010! Remember being super impressed with it when i played it on my iphone 3g. You couldn't even multitask back then.

Yes, this was exemplary. Very nice of them.