Developers can turn off your IOS games you bought

From http://www.joystiq.com/2012/05/02/rock-band-ios-unplugged-may-31/

"Electronic Arts' Rock Band for iOS "will no longer be playable" after May 31. RockBandAide took note of a prompt in the app, which informs owners that the band is breaking up at the end of the month. At this time, there is no indication that a similar fate is in store for the more recent Rock Band Reloaded app.

Harmonix communications guru John Drake tweeted out that the developer was not the publisher of the title and is "working to better understand what's up ASAP."

Electronic Arts has yet to comment on the situation. "


So basically you buy an app on IOS, if the developer decides too they can shut off the app completely so you can no longer use it.

 

Looks like those who want to retain their purchased game and DLC will have to jailbreak and find the inevitable hacked pirated version that disables this "functionality".

 

Was this a time locked feature or something? How can a developer change content of the software without you first accepting an update from the app store unless it was time activated? Doesn't that also suggest developers have the ability to spy and intrude on your privacy, potentially even controlling the device it's self? Kind of scary if you ask me.

 

That's part of the magic of downloads. You're never really buying the product, only a "license" to use the product, which they can revoke at any time. I believe the same applies to XBLA and PSN games, it's just that they've yet to do it. They have, of course, removed games from the marketplace, but I don't think they actually removed functionality from games people have already bought (yet). They probably could.

 

Whether you have a physical disc or not, you're only buying a license to use the product.

 

Perhaps, but they can't take away your ability to play a disc, at least not with previous generation consoles. I'm not sure if that's possible with the current generation.

It's more than that, though, because you can also sell a disc - whereas you can't sell a download.

 

They do that all the time with PC games that need to connect through some terrible software like Games for Windows Live.

 

Soon they will cut access to online manuals to save bandwith and the earth's resources, go EA!

 

Yup. What you OWN is the tangible physical material of the product. Disc-shaped plastic object, sheets of paper, molded plastic holder for the disc object... A core "flaw" of DRM is being inherently digital. It's like how they can't prevent placing speakers next to a microphone to re-record DRM'd music.

Companies can't stop you from finding other ways to use game discs. Coaster, dog chew toy, wind chime, whatever. As much as I'm sure they'd like to.

 

Funny story: I rebooted into Windows the other day to play Half Life 2, and it said something like, "The game you are trying to play is currently unavailable. Please try again at a later time." "Currently unavailable"? What the fuck does that mean? It's already on my computer. I tried again a few minutes later and it worked, but it just made me wonder what was going on.

 

Gabe stated in an interview that if Valve goes under they will release a tool to override Steam's DRM, he said that he ran tests and they were sucessuful. I just hope it's true...

 

I'd be amazed where they'd host the download for the tool if they're completely out of money.

 

It's true that when you "buy" a game, you're only paying for a license to use it; however it the company decides to somehow "cancel" the license (as it seems in this case) they should refund the customer.
That's why I hate all "download-only" apps/games/books/etc online stores... especially those with DRM.

 

Rapidshare, Uploading.com, Mediafire... to name a few...

 

https://groups.google.com/group/linux.dev.kernel/msg/76ae734d543e396d

I think that applies. All they would need to do is upload it somewhere else and everyone would mirror it.

 

As an iOS dev of four years...I know that this just isn't possible to from our end. Even apps that are no longer for sale are still downloadable from Apple if you've bought them before.

I suspect there's a lot of money being thrown Apple's way in order for this to happen.

 

You assume that the game/app doesn't require some form of network authentication/phone home every once in a while.

 

Fair point.

 

I have noticed something similar on my Iphone 3G i know its outdated but damn...... some of the apps now longer work and when i tried to Sync the apps via Itunes the app says this app is not compatible with this Iphone etc the app worked fine last year ! now its incompatible it sucks!

 

As a mac and OS X fan, this is one of the worst parts of the IOS platfrom. Apple updates IOS constantly and worse most new apps require the latest firmware (I bet to get app approval they have to make it run on the latest). The iphone 3G should be able to run most iphone apps except for the most processor heavy games. Instead because you can't update to the latest IOS version, your locked out of most of the apps on the store including maybe access to the store itself, its terrible. Its the one thing the Android platform really has over it. I'm on android 2.2 (almost two years old now) and I can still log into the current android app store and download most of the apps there.