Actually, Apple does care: just yesterday there were devs grousing about Apple requiring 64 bit support starting in February. But we're talking millions of apps. Beyond testing during the approval process, there's really no practical way for the company to confirm current-system compatibility. You think the approval process is long now? Imagine if they were also re-approving older apps at the same time. The key here is to complain and demand refunds. I agree with the poster who said that someone who has owned the game for years is not justified to as for a refund. But anyone who has bought the game after iOS8 released should make sure to express their dismay to Apple. And anybody who owns the game should make sure to write a review: mine has a headline that reads BUYER BEWARE!
Fair isn't the right word for your situation. Anyone can get an automated refund for any iTunes store purchase made in the last 90 days through reportaproblem.apple.com iOS 8 launched 138 days ago, TWEWY has not worked on it for 138 of those 138 days. If I had just purchased TWEWY within a 90 day window intersecting the iOS 8 launch, I would have had my refund no later than 114 days ago regardless of what I expected from SqE. So many developers were pushing iOS 8 compatibility updates even before iOS 8 launched that most of my apps had been updated weeks ahead of its launch, and the overwhelming majority had been updated for iOS 8 within 3-4 weeks. If I had spent $18 on TWEWY 150-170 days ago and iOS 8 broke it 138 days ago, no damn way I would have waited around to see if they were going to fix it after a couple of weeks had gone by and no definite statement it was coming. Yes, by all means, SqE *should* have been more on top of things and pulled it from the store as soon as iOS 8 launched if they weren't certain they could get it fixed in a timely fashion, but as the consumer, we have to watch our own asses. When an app, regardless of cost, fails to function, you make the call: do I get the refund now while I am entitled to it, or do I roll the dice and live with the consequences if they don't fix it. You rolled the dice, and you lost.
What I mean is that the complaints won't make a difference here. I'm not saying they have to sift through every app on the store regularly, but in the case of stuff like Sonic 4 Episode 2, I'm sure they're aware of the issue, and that they don't step in over the course of years tells me that on this particular point, they aren't going to do anything about it. Whether they should be expected to or not is a whole other conversation. There's little precedent for something as big as the App Store.
For what it's worth, Episode 2 is no longer in the App Store. The real difference here is that SE has stated that they're working on the iOS8 issue in the App Store description. If what support said is accurate, that's tantamount to fraud. It may take them a while, but Apple does eventually remove fraudulent apps from the store.
Sonic 4 Episode 2. SEGA pulled it not long ago, but it hadn't worked since iOS 6. They even had the gall to put it on sale a few times after it was broken, and the app indicated in its description that a fix was in the works. Anyway, if what the NA support said turns out to be true, your biggest mistake here was trusting Square Enix. I'm sure you won't make that "mistake" again, so good job SE, I suppose.
Well, they did update all the CR games, so I guess it's not surprising that folks expected SE to follow through on this one, too. Of course, spending $18 on a game you know doesn't work doesn't see like such a wise choice.
Is this problem just on japanese companies? This makes more difficult to trust on the appstore because there are no guarantees anymore when buying a game. I believe its time to bring all this to the light, now with TWEWY that is a 20 dollars game, I believe many people just remain silence after this kind of things and maybe more often will happen this and companies just get their stealing profits and just dont care anymore for the customer
No, I don't think it's isolated to Japanese companies. Crimson Gem already came up, and that's South Korean. I will say that EA and Gameloft were quick to get their iOS 8-broken apps taken down, though.
So, this is going to be a front page article, right? Same as a five alarm freebie, a five alarm "your purchase is forever dead" article would be nice.
I can pitch it, but I'm just a freelancer. It's out of my hands as to whether it becomes more than a pitch. I'll have to wait and see what I hear from Square Enix Japan before I even go as far as that, though. Could just be a miscommunication.
Saw this on reddit earlier. It's going to cost more to fix it than they think they will make from having it fixed so they are not going to bother with it. Keep this in mind when buying games from them in the future. Id honestly ask for refunds if I had purchased it.
Really? Mind sharing the link to the reddit article? That's just.... Sad.... I really want to play this game on my ios 8
That's so sad.. Someone even mentioned how simple it's to update the game and make it playable to play in ios 8 "You know what the most hilarious part is? It's an easy fix. IOS8 changed some directories around. TWEWY looks for the hardcoded path to its data files instead of a relative directory (so FYI it is shoddy programming in the first place since directory conventions may always be subject to change). That's the only thing that broke. If you're on a jailbroken device, all you need to is add a couple symbolic links so that when it looks for data in \a\b\c, it ends up in \a\b\d. It takes like one minute to solve. I played it on IOS8 and it works perfectly. With the source code, probably would take all of half an hour to run an edit>find>replace and change all the absolute paths to relative ones." And this "I am on a jailbroken ipad mini. How would I go about doing this? EDIT: after googling I just found this link. For anyone that is interested: http://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/2k4jbs/possible_fix_for_apps_that_use_the_hardcoded"
