Remember a few weeks ago when almost all the Telltale games (and other games, too) pulled a Houdini on us and disappeared from the App Store? The Walking Dead (Free), The Wolf Among Us, and Back to the Future were pulled both from the App Store and from purchase histories because of iOS 9 audio issues. Well, the first of the three, The Walking Dead, has just reappeared on the App Store with the audio bug apparently fixed. I expect that the other series will follow suit, and we should have the full Telltale collection back on the App Store. While the whole apps-disappearing debacle seems to mostly be in the past, it did emphasize for many the ephemeral nature of all digital games and, in this case, especially iOS games. So yes, the Telltale saga is steadily heading towards a happy ending, but who knows when (not if) the next similar situation will arise.

At the same time, this whole debacle emphasized how Apple’s new OS versions seem to break a lot of games recently. While it’s difficult to know how much heads-up Apple gives developers and who’s to blame for these issues, the fact remains that with each new iOS version, more and more games break. With many iOS developers failing to find financial success on the App Store, I can see an increasing number of them not bothering to fix a game that suffers from iOS compatibility issues. So, while it’s good that The Walking Dead is back on the App Store safe and sound (probably a first in The Walking Dead universe), I’m trying very hard not to see this whole situation as a canary in the coal mine kind of moment. Hopefully, I’m wrong.