I would also like to know what the problem was.
Obviously I am not a developer of mobile games and I also can't know how development for IPhones works.
But if I as a company develop apps for apple, wouldn't I be bound by contract to update my code for each new Apple device every year?
And wouldn't I be required to know this before I actually get my app released in the app store?
This looks to me as if this company thought, "hey, let's make games, but on a locked down system without knowing that we must update more often than on a computer."
And then they seemed surprised that they would have to regularly update These games and then they were seemingly so shocked that they ran away in fear and changed Business type just to get rid of it all.
Sounds stupid and it probably wasn't the way I described it here.
But you should know before you make Long Lasting decisions.
And it looked a bit like they were behaving like children.
I thought you have to join a developer program or something with clear terms and regulations.
Shouldn't there be something in the contract which states that the app developer has to maintain their product because of frequent software updates or new generations of hardware coming out?
And wouldn't this company have been informed that 64-Bit support was coming even before the public was told?
I mean that's what developer programs are for, so that commercial hardware manufacturers or software developers can usually get preview builds to test that their new products will run when the next operating system or device comes out?
And finally, does anyone know if maintaining software compatibility for their games would have been that expensive?
I mean, their games were already initially developed, sounds and music were paid for, respectably sound designers as well, voice acting was already done. So they would only need to get the latest SDK for IOS 11 or whatever the current version to be supported was, check the code and possibly run it just through an updated compiler once someone looked the code over...
And if the SDK and its tools were of good quality, shouldn't there be "helper tools" which either check for compatibility in the code, or partially convert projects to the new format?
Isn't it also possible to migrate projects between different versions of Visual Studio as an example?
And if we are talking commercial development tools/engines, project conversion/migration should be part of the package.
I don't know if it is with IOS, but I would like to know.
Why is that apparently too expensive to continue with the update cycle? Why did they drop game development entirely?
If they had said they won't support their current games, that was one thing, but why they did not simply say they would make a new game if creating a new port/version is too complicated is beyond me, because surely someone bought their games and thus they should have earned some money through it...
Since I don't know if creating a new game supporting current hardware is cheaper than updating existing ones I wonder if that decision was a good one from a business point of view.
I would like to know what actually is cheaper, updating existing code to support IOS 11, or to create new code from scratch not including costs for sounds or voice acting if a new game was to be developed.