EA Killing Rock Band For iPhone, Game Will Be Unplayable For Current Owners

http://toucharcade.com/2012/05/02/original-ios-rock-band-shutting-down-at-the-end-of-may/

by dusing • 14 years ago

149 99 14 years ago

0x04• 14 years ago

Wow, that's pretty insane. Wonder how Apple will treat EA's iOS developer license if they keep doing it like that.

Otherwise you could dodge the whole "apps that are 'trial' versions" are prohibited... Release the app for a small sum, pull it after a while and release a sequel!

Or will this be another case of "some developers are more equal than others"?

TazeTSchnitzel• 14 years ago

As much as I dislike Apple's meddling, I'd love it if they punished EA for this.

maximilianburke• 14 years ago

Apple's taking a 30% cut of $a-lot-of-money that passes through their App Store because of EA's games, I don't think they're going to rescind their ability to develop for iOS.

Perceval• 14 years ago

Yes, but Apple is always willing to prioritize users over developers, which is why Apple is constantly pissing off developers by making them jump through extra hoops. Apple is not going to yank EA's apps, but it's likely that EA is going to get a call from Apple.

danilocampos• 14 years ago

Apple cares about selling hardware. App Store revenues are absolutely nothing compared to their hardware margins.

Anyone who fucks with their ability to sell feel-good hardware will get the lash. Let's see how fucked-with they feel after this.

halfninety• 14 years ago

Didn't Apple do the same thing themselves with Siri, albeit it was free?

jyap2• 14 years ago

I can only guess this is because of 2 reasons (which come down to cost):

  - Song licensing deals expire with unfavorable renewal costs
  - Server and other costs outweigh incoming revenue

Either way live by the content, die by the content.

0x04• 14 years ago

Soo... does that mean other platforms also expire when they can't be bothered to support a game? For example, a playstation version? What about guitar hero?

(Why would the servers be required anyways? To stream content? Couldn't content be downloaded on first run (which means you only need to fund a server&pipe big enough for new purchases))

Tiktaalik• 14 years ago

There been instances where games re-released on new platforms have been modified because the creators were unable or unwilling to re-license certain content again. One example that comes to mind is Sega removing songs from The Offspring from Crazy Taxi when they released a version of the game for Xbox Live Arcade. The original arcade version also featured real branded destinations, like KFC, and these have been turned into generic versions.

dpark• 14 years ago

> Why would the servers be required anyways? To stream content? Couldn't content be downloaded on first run

Probably depends on licensing terms. I can absolutely see record companies licensing under terms that don't allow end-users to save the music locally.

masterzora2• 14 years ago

> Soo... does that mean other platforms also expire when they can't be bothered to support a game? For example, a playstation version?

What? Are you being intentionally ridiculous. They license songs. I don't know the terms of these specific licenses but the way they work in general is that they can license the game for a specific use and/or term. I'm not a lawyer so I don't know specific legal terms off the top of my head but there's a different license for the PlayStation version of the game where they are giving the user a copy of the song to have and to hold and one where they would stream, which I assume the iOS version is actually doing. Again, not a lawyer so I don't know the specifics but you will often see something like a TV show having broadcast rights to use a song in their show but they (especially for older shows) may have failed to procure the appropriate rights to use the song on the DVD version.

Now, I don't know too much about the Rock Band app so I'm sure someone more knowledgeable about it is likely to come through and correct me but it sounds like the songs are streamed for the iPhone. This wouldn't be as crazy as it sounds since phones still have relatively limited space and applications with smaller footprints are thus easier to manage.

iamandrus• 14 years ago

Doesn't this violate Apple's policy? If not, has this happened in the past?

smackfu2• 14 years ago

Practically, it doesn't seem like there is any way to force a company to keep their servers running to support a game forever, no matter what the policy is.

ceejayoz2• 14 years ago

They could threaten EA's other apps, though, or perhaps refund all purchases for the game.

modeless2• 14 years ago

Rock Band isn't a multiplayer game and shouldn't need any servers to play.

duskwuff• 14 years ago

On the face of it, having an application which explicitly "expires" at some point in the future is a violation of (currently) point 11.9 of the App Store Review Guidelines:

11.9. Apps containing "rental" content or services that expire after a limited time will be rejected.

What this means for applications like Rock Band that spontaneously turn into expiring services remains to be determined.

Karunamon3• 14 years ago

If I had to put a valid reason to this instead of simply declaring that EA are dicks (which is still true but...), I'd guess that the rights on the songs expired and they are no longer legally allowed to distribute them.

Think about it. It would be even more scummy of them to leave the app up for download with no way to pull the songs required to play the game down from the cloud.

It's shitty either way, especially if you just bought the app but, I don't see a good way out of it.

mikeash• 14 years ago

Negotiating rights in such a way that leaves you open to this, then selling the app when you know you might have to pull it due to licensing, is not really any better.

smackfu2• 14 years ago

There is a middle ground. They can pull the app from the store, but it is still playable on people devices. It's not great, but it's a lot better than "you can't play this game anymore even though it's installed."

And it seems fairly ridiculous that EA would not get rights that last for the life of a single product. They've been doing song licensing for 10+ years now.

masterzora2• 14 years ago

If the songs are in the cloud that middle ground doesn't work.

yuliyp• 14 years ago

EA sold you a copy of the song along with a license to use that song in the context of playing the game. If the copy was sold with a stipulation that you could not use the copy after a certain period of time that's fine, but that's not what happened. If EA was sending out copies of songs that it didn't have the right to do under its licensing agreements, then it sounds like people could probably easily sue to get the money the paid for DLC back (since the transaction was fraudulent as EA didn't have the right to sell what it sold, though ianal).

coopdog• 14 years ago

Assuming the songs are on the phone, it should fail gracefully

Any functions requiring server access should inform you that they are no longer available, while the game bit itself should still be playable

Obviously login wouldn't work any more, they should offer one final upgrade to let users use the app without logging in

mikerice• 14 years ago

If you owned it, you can go to your transactions page and issue a refund. It takes around 4 hours, and it comes out of EA's pockets!

josereyes• 14 years ago

Is this on iOS? If so, how does one get to the transactions page?

devindotcom• 14 years ago

It's in iTunes IIRC. Sorry, don't know exactly where, but it's in there. It won't be anywhere logical, I'm guessing.

ceejayoz2• 14 years ago

The really inexcusable part is that the game is still available for purchase, with no indication in the description that it's about to self-destruct.

Hopefully Apple nails them to the wall on this.

daenz• 14 years ago

I had to see it with my own eyes:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rock-band/id333307161?mt=8

Permit• 14 years ago

Interesting how there's no mention of its discontinuation with the exception of user reviews. I can't help but imagine a few stragglers might buy it this month and immediately lose access.

ConstantineXVI2• 14 years ago

Even better, it hasn't been updated since 2010. That implies EA planned to pull the plug when they shipped it.

j_baker2• 14 years ago

Much as I hate lawyers and class-action lawsuits, I'd be willing to bet EA gets taken to court over this if Apple doesn't punish them. I'm not a lawyer, but I'd imagine that one could argue in court that there's an implied warranty that your app won't just quit functioning on some arbitrarily chosen date. After all, this does sound remarkably similar to Bait-and-switch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait-and-switch

hack_edu• 14 years ago

Apple and EA didn't need more PR drama. Welcome to the yet another battle in the war of (signed) 'Apps' vs our old notions of software.

Plus, EA certainly doesn't need any more bad publicity after Mass Effect 3 and all their release day DLC drama.

jacquesm• 14 years ago

I'm sure a blanket refund issued to all the current owners of the game will quickly explain to EA why this is a terrible idea. They'll survive, but they'll be wiser.

jaysonelliot• 14 years ago

As apps move to the cloud, record albums turn into subscriptions, and books become bits on a Kindle, I fear this sort of thing will become more commonplace.

Sometimes intentionally, like this example, sometimes you'll lose access to things you thought you had bought as companies merge or expire, or through good old-fashioned screw-ups.

I can run a program on my thirty-year-old Apple computer today just as I could when I bought it, even though the company who made the software may have disappeared in the '90s. Records I bought as a kid are still here, and no one can edit or "deauthorize" the books on my shelf.

I wonder if kids born now will grow up without any expectation that buying any form of software or media entitles them to keep and use what they've bought anytime they want?

evoxed• 14 years ago

Paranoia: in 20 years when you try to go online with your MacBook, it defaults to a kernel message, "Unfortunately this hardware is too old to connect to the U-net and is no longer supported. Please upgrade at ____". I don't buy it, but it is possible, especially as operating systems become more centralized within the cloud and whatnot. Our Apple ][s, Macs, Mac Classics, etc. aren't social enough to be ostracized anyway.

ctdonath3• 14 years ago

The great irony of the information age is that everything will be forgotten.

cdrxndr• 14 years ago

What's crazy is that kids today won't have music passed down to them per this trend. The license to your iTunes music collection ends with your life as per the Apple ToS (seriously).

I don't want to buy licenses. Can we please buy things that are real (like bits, real).

tomjen3• 14 years ago

Nobody gives a shit what the tos say. People will share their music.

AJ007• 14 years ago

Quick, buy it now so you can get in on the class action.

ctdonath3• 14 years ago

Why, so you can get credit toward a future EA game purchase equal or lesser than the purchase price of this game?

Or [squints suspiciously] are you a class-action lawyer?

robomartin• 14 years ago

Someone brought-up an interesting point: The thought of your entire iBooks or Kindle book library evaporating is a sobering one.

Will all of this be around in twenty or thirty years? I have physical books that are nearly 100 years old in my library. They don't require a third party to exist in order to be usable.

These kinds of things make you re-think some of these ideas.

Another place where this happens much faster is power tools. I still have a number of excellent power tools that are easily 15 to 20 years old. Sawzall, drill, router, biscuit joiner, circular saw, etc.

All of them have a chord and are AC powered.

None of the battery powered tools I bought long ago are around. In some cases the battery packs have been discontinued. In other cases the batteries went bad and the replacement cost for the obsolete packs is just too high.

So, if you want to leave tools and books to your kids, you might want to rethink what you are buying. It is possible to imagine that iBooks and Kindle will not be around in 40 to 50 years.

Anyone know what the TOS say about this for both Apple and Amazon? Do you own your books or have they become licenses that can go poof overnight?

frio• 14 years ago

In the case of Amazon at least, the DRM on Kindle ebooks is ludicrously easy to crack. Every book I purchase, I crack - both for self-preservation (the removal of 1984 from every device it was installed on was worrying), and because not being able to share frustrates me.

More than games, music, etc., not being able to share books drives me crazy. Everyone in my flat has a small library; we share our books between eachother. When we started getting Kindles, that was stymied: after reading the first book in the Void trilogy on paper, I was unable to let my flatmate (who read the first book after me) read the second book - because I bought it on Kindle. That was... well, lame.

So now, I manage my Kindle with Calibre. Every book I buy gets cracked.

caf• 14 years ago

This is exactly what I do with my Kobo. I buy EPUB format books and immediately crack the DRM off and load them into Calibre, confident that I'll be able to convert it and load it onto whatever device I may buy in the future.

runjake• 14 years ago

Either you are buying off a different Amazon store or there's some new Topaz DRM decryption scheme. As far as I know, most current Kindle books aren't crackable.

wazoox• 14 years ago

listen, if you want to get rid of DRM legally and as soon as possible, the only reasonable way is not to crack, but to boycott DRM laden ebooks, plain and simple. That's what I do. It's annoying but it's the price to pay if you want things to be what's right and not what egoistically please you more.

drewcrawford2• 14 years ago

> Will all of this be around in twenty or thirty years?

I actually have the opposite theory. Will books be around in 20 or 30 years? I mean, books that exist now will continue to exist. But will new ones continue to be printed? Will it continue to exist as a format?

I am an early adopter, but a growing fraction of things I read simply do not come in dead-tree format. We are approaching a singularity where today's hardbacks becomes tomorrow's paperbacks--something to do when demand is higher than anticipated.

I am with you when you are concerned about DRM and how long your iPad will last. But I think DRM-free PDF and ePub are a lot more futureproof than paper. Imagine if your house catches on fire--do you even have a list of books to put on the insurance form? Whereas, I have all my books backed up with geographic redundancy.

Disclaimer: I've scanned all my books, http://sealedabstract.com/lifehacking/the-joy-of-electronic-...

anonymoushn• 14 years ago

All of your images seem to be 0 bytes.

lukev• 14 years ago

With current technology, physical media is still more robust for the effort expended. If you throw a book on a shelf, it will be there in 50 years except in the event of a house-destroying catastrophe (which hopefully insurance would cover). No thought required. In fact, my son could discover it decades after I'm dead, with no other communication between us.

Current digital solutions, however, require more or less constant upkeep. Physical media such as hard drives, DVDs and flash is susceptible to both catastrophic failure and bit rot with a half life of only about 5 years (in my experience). Online storage services which outsource the task of redundant maintained storage avoid this, but to protect yourself from services going defunct you need to have your data on multiple services and keep them constantly synced.

In short, if you stop actively backing up/maintaining your data for even a few years, chances are you'll loose it.

I think there's also discoverability issues with digital media in its current incarnation, but that's another discussion.

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

Yes, this is why I store PDFs on archival optical media with the C code to parse the PDF. I really need a good (as in compact) epub reader to keep with my OReilly library though. Any pointers appreciated.

mattgreenrocks• 14 years ago

In thirty years, C code may be a goofy relic of ages past that is difficult to get going.

(Yeah yeah, you're probably thinking C is eternal. But I'm sure people swore that older languages would survive no matter what.)

spatten• 14 years ago

An epub file is just a zip archive containing HTML files and a manifest. You could probably get away with just epub and something to unzip them with.

I'm assuming that HTML renderers will be around for a while, though. If you're feeling paranoid, throw in a copy of lynx or a quick script to strip out all of the tags :).

rsl72• 14 years ago

"re" think? Everything digital is far more ephemeral than their physical counterparts.

Print your favorite photos in black and white on acid free paper if you want them to endure.

phillmv• 14 years ago

I'm interested in collecting links and thoughts on this very issue. Do you need to use special ink on acid-free paper? Is it easy to buy acid-free paper? Have we figured out any good ways for long term just plain data preservation? (let's forget about preserving obsolete encoding formats, for the sake of argument)

I have a number of videos of someone dear to me that I'll never be able to replicate, and I'm very interested in making it last slightly longer than my current harddrive/the lifespan of my amazon S3 backups.

I have half a pg-style-essay on The Great Forgetting kicking around my harddrive. I have this pet theory that future archeologists will have a better conception of 1980s pop culture than what is about to unfold in the decades to come. Or even what's happening right now that large tracts of late 90s/early aughts digital culture is evaporating.

est• 14 years ago

ok, that raises an interesting question: what is the most ink-economic printing encoding for digital data?

For example, I want to print a PNG file, instead of printing out the picture, I want to preserve its original files hex codes, instead of printing some SVG curves, I would print its XML source instead. Instead of printing formulas, I would print the LaTex source code directly. This could be lossless data printing.

What would be the most effeciant, ink-saving, and easy to recognize, and error-preventing serialization format for printing?

BrisbaneGreg• 14 years ago

Apologies for being cynical, but you can guarantee that things will be 'no longer supported' etc in the future.. purely by the planned obsolescence of the capitalist system.

I work in the book trade and while we may see a shift in 20-30 years - certain things will never disappear - coffee table books, most kids books, drawing books etc. "Mainstream" (whatever that means) authors may become virtually exclusively electronic.

Personally I like to look at my bookshelves and what is there - and enjoy viewing others.

antidoh• 14 years ago

"Will all of this be around in twenty or thirty years?"

No.

uvTwitch• 14 years ago

I have bought a kindle, upon which are stored many books. I have also bought many physical books.

Have I purchased any kindle books? Well, only if they aren't available in physical form.

I am confused by people who believe that things on the internet are any sort of permanent - or private, but that's another matter entirely.

dubya• 14 years ago

Most of the battery packs for tools are proprietary shells around completely standard cells inside. If you can open the plastic shell without destroying it, you can just replace the cells, usually for less than the manufacturer wants for the whole thing. And maybe 3-d printing would allow case replacement.

astrodust• 14 years ago

The usual "NiCad" and "NiMH" batteries are straight-forward to replace, but lithium-based batteries can be dangerous. They'll explode if not properly charged and have electronics paired to the cell to manage the charging cycle.

I'd be extremely careful when hacking lithium batteries. If you must, follow a guide (http://www.electronics-lab.com/articles/Li_Ion_reconstruct/) and be very careful.

When things go wrong, the results are spectacular (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3o_2mwRPdw).

jyap2• 14 years ago

I tried to find out more from their Support pages but only found this FAQ: https://help.ea.com/article/will-rock-band-no-longer-be-avai...

From the page:

Will ROCK BAND no longer be available on mobile devices?

Updated: 5/2/2012

I've heard ROCK BAND will not be available after May 31. Is this true?

Yes, we will be suspending support of ROCK BAND after May 31 and focusing resources on other EA titles. We thank everyone for playing ROCK BAND, and we encourage you to explore some of the other exciting titles in our mobile line-up.

Can I still play ROCK BAND if I've already downloaded it?

The ROCK BAND servers will be live through May 31, 2012. If you have already downloaded the game, you can continue to play until then.

gergles• 14 years ago

They've now memory-holed this page.

schiffern• 14 years ago

No surprise. Their official story is that it was an error.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57426660-93/ea-not-killing-...

creade• 14 years ago

EA apparently just retracted: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57426660-93/ea-not-killing-...

bluedanieru• 14 years ago

Usually when something I wrote or released produces an error, I don't corroborate that error with human-written text on my website. EA is full of shit.

uncoder0• 14 years ago

Doesn't really work when it is posted in the FAQ. This appears to be a poor cover-up or a pretty big internal misunderstanding.

http://i.imgur.com/eTwHH.png

ctdonath3• 14 years ago

Remember some years back Belkin sold a router that would randomly replace web page requests with redirects to ads for their products? I haven't purchased any Belkin products since. I may not purchase any more EA products for similar reasons.

EA Killing Rock Band For iPhone, Game Will Be Unplayable For Current Owners

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