If you write a book, it lives forever.
If you write an iPhone game, it exists until you stop updating it?
Remember my game Blip Arcade? (that’s ok, I barely do either)
It’s no longer purchasable because Apple removed it. The reason: “We noticed that your app has not been updated in a significant amount of time”.
I’m not the only one either, Jayenkia posted about the same issue a few days ago, if you click below you can see some discussion about it:
#Dislike pic.twitter.com/S1LlMMCKOG
— Spike's Dislikes (@SpikesDislikes) September 8, 2018
It gets worse
Being delisted is one thing, but another worry is platform death.
<raises a glass to the following dead platforms I’ve released software on>
Worldgroup/MBBS, WebOS, Blackberry 10, BREW, Tapwave Zodiac, Zeebo
Some of these can be emulated but newer platforms are increasingly relying on cloud services to do anything, backends that get shut down without ever being publicly documented.
Good luck, emulator writers and software archivists, we’re counting on you.
I’m doing my part gif
In some cases we developers can help out by releasing legal free versions (sans DRM of course) of old stuff that is no longer commercially relevant.
Source code too, when the situation permits. I just need to get around to doing that with my old stuff before it’s lost to the ravages of bad sectors…
To that end, I shall be making another old game of mine free tomorrow as well as open-sourcing it…!
Is there any chance unlocked versions of LORD/LORD II/TEOS will ever see the light of day? Gameport doesn’t seem to respond to e-mails anymore. Last week, I sent them order forms and a check but I have no idea if that will ever result in registration codes. It will be interesting if they cash the check but never send the codes.
James, I wish I knew the answer to that myself. I’ve tried to make contact but have not been successful. (I want to buy back my BBS games and open source them) Please let me know what happens with your registration situation.
Seth, it took a while but a customer service person from mseaudio.com (not Gameport) sent me the codes. I am absolutely astonished. Since MSE Audio seems to be very much an active business, you may have better luck trying to get a hold of someone there, if you haven’t tried that already. I can also forward the customer service person’s name and e-mail address, if you’d like. I think the BBS community, such as it is these days, would be really excited to see the rights back in your hands.
Well, I spoke too soon. The LORD code was fine but the LORD II and TEOS codes are duds. Bizarre.
Thanks for the update. Strange about the codes not working.