Stateside is a weekly column from Steel Media's US operation, which incorporates 148Apps, Android Rundown and GiggleApps.

When Apple first announced iCloud, it represented a world of promise for gamers and developers.

A future was at hand where a game could be started on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac and continued on any of those devices, all handled seamlessly by iCloud.

Well, that dream has become a nightmare.

Thanks to the difficulty of implementing iCloud - due in large part to the technical hiccups that continue plague the service - it represents a huge cost for developers in both time and customer support.

It's no wonder iCloud game saves remain a niche feature. There's little evidence its use is growing, and there are few justifications for developers to take the time to implement it.

What went wrong?

One of the problems with implementing iCloud saves has been the method designed for saving game data has proven to be unreliable.

There are two methods for iCloud data storage: a document storage that is meant to be used by apps like word processors and file managers; and a key-value method with data that isn't available for users to access or modify. That second implementation is designed for games, but various problems have caused games to use the document implementation for their saves.

It appears to be far more stable, but the downside is the data can be more easily accessed by users, which leads to an increased risk of cheating.

Rains on us all

It's not just small teams who have had issues with iCloud, either. Big-name developers frequently do, too.

Infinity Blade II launched with iCloud support that used the key-value method of data storage, before switching over to document storage in an expedited post-launch update. While this largely sorted out the issues, older devices often had problems with synchronisation that could lead to users losing their data entirely.

Pocket Planes was another high-profile game that had issues with iCloud support. Its support forums were deluged with requests to fix it, or even to disable it entirely.

This demonstrates two problems. Supporting iCloud not only requires additional amount of time to implement and test, but it will likely lead to additional time spent answering customer inquiries instead of developing new features or fixing other issues.

Which comes first?

When top-flight developers such as Chair and NimbleBit are struggling to implement the feature reliably, many others will consider that the risks outweigh the advantages.

And because so few games use iCloud, there's no expectation from users to implement it, anyhow.

Even worst, users may now expect to have different save files, so using iCloud runs the risk of confusing them. In this way, it's something of a chicken-and-the-egg scenario where users don't expect iCloud support because so few games use it.

Maybe that's why NimbleBit appears to be abandoning iCloud support in its upcoming Nimble Quest, according to a tweet from Tim Rudolph. The studio declined to comment further when contacted, however.

The right approach

The best way for developers to implement iCloud seems to be taking a manual approach. That's what Derek Doucett of Ravenous Games says.

"We developed and refined a reusable SaveGame file with iCloud support when we created League of Evil 2 back in February 2012," he explains.

"There were some headaches with conflict resolution that caused some gamers to lose their progress. However we ironed the bugs out right away and got it working the way we expected.

"This SaveGame file has made it through a bunch of our releases since and as of right now we are pretty happy with the way iCloud is working."

All of its releases since have featured iCloud support, though they haven't been immune to glitches: Infestor had non-functioning iCloud support, for example. Ravenous' games also feature less data to be transferred than something like Pocket Planes; it's largely star ranking data on different levels.

Provide options

For those looking to implement iCloud, Derek recommends to "Make sure to implement save file conflict resolution and always prefer the gamer's local copy. If there is a newer game save on iCloud then give the gamer the option to replace their local save with the remote one."

In Ravenous' case, this is usually presented as a prompt to the player to either load the local save or the save from iCloud when booting the game on a different device. And while it can be confusing, it's also the safest mechanism to ensure user data is not lost.

This is also what Jetpack Joyride does, though it used OpenFeint cloud saves initially before transitioning to iCloud once the service shut down.

What's my motivation again?

So, for developers considering adding iCloud support, what's the reason? If it just causes support headaches, if users don't have much of a desire to use it, and it requires so much work to make it work in the first place, then what's the point of supporting it?

As David Frampton of Majic Jungle Software tweeted about potentially implementing cloud saves into The Blockheads: "There are just so many major issues with adding iCloud support. I just can't see a way to do it that does less harm than good."

But Derek Doucett counters; "We want to make sure our gamers are able to enjoy and transfer progress in our games across all their devices."

And this seems to be the best reason to attempt to support iCloud, plus it will keep Apple happy, and as we all know, happy Apple is the best way to get your game featured.

Brass tacks

But remember, implementation is additional work not just in terms of programming but also in customer support, plus you're tackling a problem that's stumped even top-flight developers.

Those who tackle the challenge are brave - if not foolhardy - but are ultimately trying to strive to that principle of seamless gameplay no matter where the player is.

However, until Apple improves iCloud reliability, or the general public starts to demand it, developers need to ask themselves: is this a feature that's really worth pursuing?