US developer Demiforce has cancelled plans to launch its Onyx connected games platform for iPhone, which had been trailed as bringing Xbox Live style community features to App Store games.
"Apple recently told us they couldn't guarantee Onyx-enabled games would be approvable in the App Store," writes boss Steve Demeter on his blog.
"They pointed us to certain areas of the terms agreement contract, but declined to elaborate further as to whether or not Onyx would comply with those guidelines. Ultimately, this presented a business risk that neither I nor my potential investors wanted to challenge."
Although Demeter says he takes the blame for not investigating these grey areas before, it's a puzzling development.
Apple's senior product manager for iPhone worldwide product marketing Eric Jue recently told PocketGamer.biz that Apple was happy for developers to be coming up with such community platforms:
"We have a very open platform, with technologies built into it that are free to developers through the SDK and the APIs," he said. "So if somebody wanted to develop that then they certainly could. It's open to the developer community and wherever they want to take the platform."
So why has a developer doing just that been discouraged sufficiently to make him stop?
The excitable view would be to suggest that Apple IS working on its own Xbox Live style platform after all, as some developers told PocketGamer.biz at the recent Mobile World Congress show.
We'll have to wait and see how other connected iPhone platforms, like Aurora Feint's recently-announced OpenFeint, fare when they get to the approval process.
"I hope their business model will mesh with Apple's approval system better than Onyx did, and I eagerly wait to see what can be done in this space," writes Demeter.
Meanwhile, Demiforce will now focus on pure iPhone games development, following on from the barnstorming success of its puzzler Trism.
News
Contributing Editor
Stuart is a freelance journalist and blogger who's been getting paid to write stuff since 1998. In that time, he's focused on topics ranging from Sega's Dreamcast console to robots. That's what you call versatility. (Or a short attention span.)
Top Stories
News
Apr 27th, 2024
PocketGamer.biz Podcast Week in Views E09 - Supercell's Squad Busters goes global, Embracer Group splits, and Apple's Vision Pro flops
News
Apr 26th, 2024
Week in Views - Squads busted, Apple crushed, War zoned and Snoozin' with the Snorlax…
Feature
Apr 26th, 2024
Speaker Spotlight: Dubai Future Foundation's Faisal Kazim on leading Dubai's gaming charge
Events
Dubai GameExpo Summit 2024 | Middle East | May 1st |
The MENA Games Industry Awards 2024 | Middle East | May 2nd |
GameDev Atlantic 2024 | May 4th | |
Mobidictum Meetup Berlin May 2024 | Europe | May 7th |
Mobidictum Meetup Tallinn May 2024 | Europe | May 21st |
Israel Mobile Summit 2024 | Middle East | Jun 6th |
DevGAMM Vilnius 2024 | Europe | Jun 14th |
Develop: Brighton 2024 | Europe | Jul 9th |
Popular Stories
News
Apr 23rd, 2024
Supercell’s Squad Busters soft launches today with over 100,000 Google Play downloads
News
Apr 25th, 2024