I haven't had any issues with apps. I only play the Sonic remasters and emulate, none of them have given me problems. Final Fantasy 6 doesn't work with the ART runtime, same for many other Square Enix games.
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Newly Broken iOS Games
- Thread starter Imbarkus
- Start date
EricTheCleric
Member
I have more or less stopped buying games on iOS. Either the games are broken or the iOS breaks them. Not fun to play 10 hours of a game you payed around 15$ for to have the save game corrupt (xcom).
deltatheta
Member
I don't play a lot of games on Android, but they changed the app runtime, which I believe broke a ton of apps.
The tradeoff was a massive performance increase, so this might have been a situation where breaking compatibility was justified. But then again, why not just keep the old runtime around to run the apps that break and can't be updated?
Garrett Hawke
Member
Hey! Yeah, I'm on the latest update but I still can't get past it. I'll try tapping elsewhere and get back to you.
Update: nope, I can't proceed and the only thing that does work is clicking the button you'd expect which takes you to the leaderboards instead. :/ would be awesome if it could be fixed as the game is great.
Femmeworth
Banned
Maybe they'll fix Ghost Trick when they get around to porting it to Android. 
Imbarkus
As Sartre noted in his contemplation on Hell in No Exit, the true horror is other members.
I feel your pain as I still have an iPad 1, but I don't really expect devs to still support it.
New OS updates.... well I guess I would say if you're not going to update the game so it still works you should pull it from the store.
Because what we're talking about here is you buy the latest iPhone and you buy and download a game currently available off the App Store and it doesn't work.
So, in other words... video games lately!
This ecosystem has needed a compatibility flag of some kind ever since iPad 2 compatible games started using the presence of a camera as their hardware determinant.
I don't feel the pain. Unfortunately my dad does which saddens me.I feel your pain as I still have an iPad 1, but I don't really expect devs to still support it.
New OS updates.... well I guess I would say if you're not going to update the game so it still works you should pull it from the store.
Because what we're talking about here is you buy the latest iPhone and you buy and download a game currently available off the App Store and it doesn't work.
So, in other words... video games lately!
This ecosystem has needed a compatibility flag of some kind ever since iPad 2 compatible games started using the presence of a camera as their hardware determinant.
Purple Cheeto
Member
Final Fantasy 2 is kind of broken on iOS 8. If you don't pull down the notification center once while playing the game then the audio channel is borked and the game will hard lock at times.
Maintaining backwards compatibility is one of the reasons Windows has issues. Gotta support those old CPUs forever!
Maintaining backwards compatibility is one of the reasons Windows has issues. Gotta support those old CPUs forever!
Imbarkus
As Sartre noted in his contemplation on Hell in No Exit, the true horror is other members.
No. My father who isn't getting any younger have been playing Candy Crush every day. Frankly he don't have much else to do and will never have the money for a new iPad. And it just made me all kinds of joyful seeing him have something to do and love. But now it's heartbreaking seeing him being sad because he can't play it anymore. He just updated the game as it asked of him and now it's not working.Son?
And now it doesn't exist.
ehhhh, no it isnt.
for some reason, they decided to half the framerate to 30fps vs 60 on ds.
It plays perfectly fine but not definite.
Oh yeah, forgot about the framerate. I'd take the higher resolution assets + larger screen over framerate in a game like that, but you're right. Not definitive.
AlphaTwo00
Member
This is the kind of thing that always makes iOS announcements a weird time for anyone in apps. It's a tossup to see what works and what doesn't, and it's almost impossible to tell what will break until the release happens. And iOS gets it easy when compared to android.
*The main problem is when an app uses something that gets deprecated. I know I have a few calls that are pointing to something that only exist in iOS5 (app was built against iOS6), which was marked to be deprecated against iOS7. Looks like everything still works now, so I got lucky.
As a few others have mentioned, those screen size changes also wreaked havoc. Many times along the way, even Apple's internal specs were to assume hardware resolutions were unchanging. Many apps, and even middleware was written with such feature in mind. Once those start changing, you get all sorts of crazy point/pixel offsets, resolution scale issues, etc.
It technically does. It's always forward compatible*.
*The main problem is when an app uses something that gets deprecated. I know I have a few calls that are pointing to something that only exist in iOS5 (app was built against iOS6), which was marked to be deprecated against iOS7. Looks like everything still works now, so I got lucky.
As a few others have mentioned, those screen size changes also wreaked havoc. Many times along the way, even Apple's internal specs were to assume hardware resolutions were unchanging. Many apps, and even middleware was written with such feature in mind. Once those start changing, you get all sorts of crazy point/pixel offsets, resolution scale issues, etc.
Don't forget the inherent points of potential failure with upgrading firmware OTA, normally, icloud backup restore, etc.
So many variables that things can break.
Like ghost trick worked fine restore from backup on my iphone 6+, but doesn't work when fresh installed on my ipad of same ios 8.1
So many variables that things can break.
Like ghost trick worked fine restore from backup on my iphone 6+, but doesn't work when fresh installed on my ipad of same ios 8.1
eyeball_kid
Member
Well, right. We used to be able to depend (unlike Android) that screen resolution and was something we didn't need to worry about. But with the 6 and the 6 Plus, that's all changed. Suddenly we have to worry about specific resolutions and aspect ratios for each device. It was an awful implementation and a middle finger to developers, but that's what we're stuck with now.
In Apple's defense, many app/game developers also write sloppy code and assume things about the device that they shouldn't assume. Or they'll use older APIs instead of using the newer stuff that's more forward-compatible. Which means that things often break when the iOS version changes.
Diablohead
Member
One of my most hated things about new iOS updates is app compatability, usually games suffer the worst.
I used to love playing a game called megatroid, iOS 7 and onwards broke the game completely, devs have abandoned the game on the app store sadly so it will never be fixed.
As of last year sometime I turned off auto updates for apps, I never update until I know it's ok and the dev hasn't broken it (twitter had a big wifi problem for a while, early twitch app would fail to load video, so forth)
I used to love playing a game called megatroid, iOS 7 and onwards broke the game completely, devs have abandoned the game on the app store sadly so it will never be fixed.
As of last year sometime I turned off auto updates for apps, I never update until I know it's ok and the dev hasn't broken it (twitter had a big wifi problem for a while, early twitch app would fail to load video, so forth)
nkarafo
Member
Holy crap... this reminds me of that "always online" argument, that the games will die after their servers are closed.
So, if there is one or two games i like on iOS and i want to have access to it after a decade, because its a classic and i would like to play it when it becomes Retro.... these games won't exist anymore? All these games have an expiration date? Game preservation thrown out of the window?
So, if there is one or two games i like on iOS and i want to have access to it after a decade, because its a classic and i would like to play it when it becomes Retro.... these games won't exist anymore? All these games have an expiration date? Game preservation thrown out of the window?
AlphaTwo00
Member
We actually saw that happen twice before, when we jumped from 3GS->4 (2X was introduced) and 4s->5 (tall screen). In both cases, many 2D games had crazy errors like having an offset hardcoded to the bottom left corner, whereas the touch was still using the point system so mapped to the full screen. I remember distinctly that chu chu rocket on the 4 suddenly became a quarter of the screen, but the touch remained intact.
6/6Plus magnified the issue because both were new resolutions, and I image that there's a ton that will never be updated to properly handle it. I know quite a few big apps back then just don't even run anymore (Remember geoDefense?completely hosed on the 6Plus, still loads properly on my 4S, both on iOS 8.1)
Retain the OS. Think of it as an OS/Game pairing. Assume that the game only works on that OS, and that a new version can break it.
Never download feature or security updates, keep the games installed for life.
I'm looking forward to emulating mobile phone games on my mobile.
Apple always had a terrible track record when it comes to backwards compatibility. They don't care much about how many devs they run over when updating their OSes and they are known change things like the behavior of API calls, the behavior and visuals of UI/visual components or even outright deprecate stuff altogether.
They expect devs to keep supporting their apps endlessly and use that asn an opportunity to sweep "abandoned" apps under the rug to make room for newer stuff (after all, they're not running out of apps anytime soon).
This is an "habit" they bought from their Mac OS development, where new OS updates always cause the death of many applications.
Apple could completely prevent older apps from breaking when adding new resolutions: by having the system lie to them unless they are recompiled with the new SDK. Have them think the screen is the same resolution as the old model and maybe even report the device as an old model to avoid problems with badly written device detection code. But they don't do it, either due to incompetence, insufficient manpower or because they'd rather gamble on a good amount of apps just working fine.
They treat the apps as disposable things and expect the majority of their customers to do the same.
kubricks
Member
I gave up ios gaming for this reason.
Every OS patch will *definitely* fuck something up, which will be fixed when the developer can be bothered, until they can't. I lost progress on rpg via os update many times, up to a point I really can't be asked anymore and decide to carry my Vita or 3DS around.
(I have not touch the gaming part of app store for over 2 years now)
Every OS patch will *definitely* fuck something up, which will be fixed when the developer can be bothered, until they can't. I lost progress on rpg via os update many times, up to a point I really can't be asked anymore and decide to carry my Vita or 3DS around.
(I have not touch the gaming part of app store for over 2 years now)
AlphaTwo00
Member
Yup, a lot of this. Basically, they expect that devs are going to support the apps indefinitely. If the devs aren't there? Oh well, that's an abandoned app.
Let's answer it from at least from my experience.
Nope. No such thing. However, a lot of apps are now not just written with Apple's core kits, but rather many other middleware (often in games). How are those written? How well are those maintained? In my case, I was using cocos2d 1.x, which was lagging anywhere from 3-6 months on the iOS base. I can have the rest of my code running against current, and I'd still be waiting (or worse, custom fixing/patching things)
No. You usually ship with a stable release. It's usually the API that gets turned onto you when a new release happens.
Sort of? Unfortunately with legacy apps, you're looking at potentially code written against iOS3/4, and sadly, depending on what type of app developer you are, you're just not going to be able to fix them. Think about this:
- As a hobby developer, how much time do you have to maintain your apps? Major iOS releases have been happening every year for the last 4 years. Can you revise all your apps in a timely manner?
- As an actual company: is it worth it if your old app is at the tail end of your income cycle? How much time/budget can you devote to upkeep your app? Can you even justify the cost of fixing it and the impact it has on your user base?
deltatheta
Member
Windows goes to utterly insane lengths to maintain backwards compatibility. Windows has historically been unparalleled in two things: running on cheap hardware, and running the same apps as previous versions without any hiccups. And those are the same two things that made Windows so successful.
Just off the top of my head, here are some of the things that Microsoft does to maintain compatibility. If there's a popular app that has a compatibility issue, Microsoft will include special code in Windows just to support that app (which they call a shim). If there's a bug in their API that apps start relying on, they'll keep the bug and fix it in a new API. Since some programs were reaching into Explorer's control panel windows to change system settings, Windows will create invisible windows that look like the old control panel windows so that the apps would still work. When minimizing an app in Windows 95 (which changed the minimizing behavior), Windows would move the window to coordinates 3000, 3000 because some apps had problems when their window was set to hidden.
I think this is something that Apple will have to start caring about if they want to be more successful in the enterprise. A lot of times, it's not even a question of funding when you have an app that needs to be updated. You don't even have the source code, and the person who wrote it is long gone. If there's an app that your company relies on, and an OS update breaks the app, you're not going to be getting the OS update.
Thanks to the developers who answered my questions. It's pretty bad if they're actually changing the behavior of API calls, not even bothering to create a new one and deprecate the old one while keeping the behavior the same. If they did it that way, at least the old code would continue working for a few OS releases.
Looking through the API docs, I see a lot of stuff that seems to be deprecated just for aesthetic reasons, like they wanted to move some code around so they went ahead and deprecated some API calls, without a care in the world for the millions of developers that are writing code for their platform... But that's just my impression from a little bit of skimming. I've got no experience with Apple development.
AlphaTwo00
Member
deprecation usually comes at least one release away. I recall that when ios6 showed up, a few functions dealing with screen orientation was marked as to be deprecated soon. It was still in ios6, which meant that even by ios7, it's still there, but when ios8 showed up, in theory that call is now gone and not referenced. Is that a sufficient warning? Maybe? But for someone like me, unless I decided to run my source code against the new release, I would have no idea that something changed.
eyeball_kid
Member
The 6 and 6 Plus are a pain because there's no longer a 1:1 ratio between asset scale and device scale. If you want to make an app or game that looks the same on every device, you're in for some pain. Apple wants devs to just create UI which conform dynamically to different sizes, but for UI which has a lot of chrome (like games), you can't necessarily just stretch your UI elements. For instance, the 6 Plus uses @3x scale assets, however because the aspect ratio is different than the 5 series, you won't have a layout that looks equivalent just doing that. So you actually have to create assets that are around 3.3 times the size of 1x assets in order for the layout to be equivalent. It's even worse with the 6, which uses @2x assets, as you'll have to special case in your code a different version of your @2x assets that are slightly bigger just for that device.
These are literally the two games I was waiting to play til I got my IPhone 6.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
Aww man, I never finished Ghost Trick. I guess I never will now.
AlphaTwo00
Member
yeah I know. It's why I haven't updated my own apps. I'm still at a lost how's best to support this
You have to be kidding me. So much for getting it day one when I upgrade to the 5c from my 3GS. Please tell me AA5 at least works... right?
noonespecial
Member
What about if you're like me and don't actually upgrade to the latest iOS version (or bother replacing their phone every year) and then run into problems with apps that worked just fine on the iOS version I had at the time of purchase but now somehow magically require a later iOS version to run even though I did not update the app or the iOS version and it is a singleplayer game? I'm not even expecting any multiplayer or server-based functionality not to work either - but why should the singleplayer game just refuse to run? If I bought a game that was supported on iOS 4.3 at the time of purchase and I haven't updated iOS or the app then how can it just not be supported any longer?
And before someone asks, yes, I have my reasons for not updating to later versions of iOS - mostly because I could give a shit about any newer features and I'd rather my iPhone4 keep being able to run the shit I bought and paid for and may not work again at a later iOS version (as in, see the previous posters' comments for examples).
Glad I avoid iOS games like the plague now (except for SMT1 I bought a few months ago).
And before someone asks, yes, I have my reasons for not updating to later versions of iOS - mostly because I could give a shit about any newer features and I'd rather my iPhone4 keep being able to run the shit I bought and paid for and may not work again at a later iOS version (as in, see the previous posters' comments for examples).
Glad I avoid iOS games like the plague now (except for SMT1 I bought a few months ago).
Zippedpinhead
Member
Ok I always see ghost trick on lists of games that don't work on iOS 8, except I own ghost trick (beaten a phone Ago when I hAd an iPhone 4). And the game loads, allows me to pick chapters and I can even beat the game. What doesn't work?
Yeah, I'm also confused. Just read this and panicked a bit, since I hadn't played ghost trick post upgrade, but it seems to be working fine on my iPad Air w/8.1. Literally only played 5 mins of the prison stuff though...
noonespecial
Member
To be fair I do not expect most operating systems to be backwards compatible with previous applications more than one version or two at the most. That tends to be the norm with most OSes (Windows and Unix for example although as another user posted Microsoft does tend to go overboard with their backwards compatibility).
The problem as I see it with Apple (and perhaps Google Android - I wouldn't know) is that the frequency of how often they are releasing new OS versions is what is crazy to me. I think I bought my iPhone4 like 4 years ago and it is still running iOS4 and they are up to iOS8 only 4 years later? Isn't that like one OS release a year?
Windows and most other operating systems (such as Unix) take at least twice that amount of time to release another major OS (often taking more time than 2 years even) and then with their backwards compatibility (typically) that just means that applications would be expected to work for much longer periods of time before no longer being backwards compatible.
That has been my biggest frustration with trying to stay current on iOS is that every time I turned around another "big" "Important!" update was just around the corner and I plain and simply got tired of always updating iOS and then finding that apps would then break or not be supported any longer. And that wasn't even between major iOS versions - that was just from 4.0, to 4.1, to 4.2, then to my current 4.3 version that I have stuck with since because I stopped caring about upgrading at that point and also stopped caring about any new apps that came out that required 4.3 or later. And 4 years later my iPhone4 still runs just fine with (most) of the apps I purchased in my first year or two of ownership. I just can't enjoy newer apps but I don't care as I have a Vita and 3DS for my handheld gaming needs and wish I would have gotten into handhelds sooner.
So I can thank Apple and my iPhone for introducing me to handheld gaming due to the truly awful garbage that iOS gaming really is (in comparison). Thanks Apple.
The problem as I see it with Apple (and perhaps Google Android - I wouldn't know) is that the frequency of how often they are releasing new OS versions is what is crazy to me. I think I bought my iPhone4 like 4 years ago and it is still running iOS4 and they are up to iOS8 only 4 years later? Isn't that like one OS release a year?
Windows and most other operating systems (such as Unix) take at least twice that amount of time to release another major OS (often taking more time than 2 years even) and then with their backwards compatibility (typically) that just means that applications would be expected to work for much longer periods of time before no longer being backwards compatible.
That has been my biggest frustration with trying to stay current on iOS is that every time I turned around another "big" "Important!" update was just around the corner and I plain and simply got tired of always updating iOS and then finding that apps would then break or not be supported any longer. And that wasn't even between major iOS versions - that was just from 4.0, to 4.1, to 4.2, then to my current 4.3 version that I have stuck with since because I stopped caring about upgrading at that point and also stopped caring about any new apps that came out that required 4.3 or later. And 4 years later my iPhone4 still runs just fine with (most) of the apps I purchased in my first year or two of ownership. I just can't enjoy newer apps but I don't care as I have a Vita and 3DS for my handheld gaming needs and wish I would have gotten into handhelds sooner.
So I can thank Apple and my iPhone for introducing me to handheld gaming due to the truly awful garbage that iOS gaming really is (in comparison). Thanks Apple.
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!
eyeball_kid
Member
You can detect the 6 Plus by checking [UIScreen mainScreen].nativeScale (nativeScale is a new 8.0 prop) for 3.0. With the 6 you basically have to detect the screen height. From there, well, it's just a lot of laborious updating.
Community Forum
Member
I actually traded in my DS copy of The World Ends With You and bought it on iOS. And now I can't even play it. It sucks, and I'm not blaming anyone, but I'm certainly going to re-think my purchasing habits when it comes to real games.
Wow, crazy. Will try not to... at least not until they sort themselves out with the app (if they ever do). Bonkers. Good thing I still have a copy of it for ds too.
AlphaTwo00
Member
Oh I know how to check. The question is what to do knowing that. As I mentioned, I had a few that were done on cocos2d, with the retina 2X size in mind. The textures were rasterized, so it's either doing scaling (will look bad), or redo assets, or rethink UI layout.
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
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
That's strange. Let me check my copy... Well... It was working... until I tried to perform the first connection. Then it just crashed to the springboard. Does the same thing on both my iPad mini and 5C.
Not that I am aware of, and I have apps on the Store.
They do the gating when you go to submit.
Apple's shit is seriously broken in that they do not allow you to roll back to prior versions of an app. I am not likely to buy any future iOS games because the whole system is a joke. I built up a huge backlog figuring these games would be good to go a decade from now because I was locked into their "system" be it on an iphone or ipad or whatever. Come to find that some apps update to not work on older iOS versions and fail to launch, and others never update only to break on the newest version. Update or not, you absolutely cannot win unless you yourself want to create some bullshit, cumbersome workflow of backing up every app version yourself manually, separately, eating terabytes of hdd space.
That isn't even counting purchased games that migrate to freemium after purchase, full of IAP and ads everywhere. It's just not worth it unless you're going to play it that instant. As an adult that never, ever happens.
That isn't even counting purchased games that migrate to freemium after purchase, full of IAP and ads everywhere. It's just not worth it unless you're going to play it that instant. As an adult that never, ever happens.
that might be the key issue. Don't think you have to connect after... first boot? forgot.
try doing it in airplane mode?
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..
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