Spiderweb pulls Avernum 2 for iPad and cancels all future iOS development because iOS 8.3 broke its engine

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Indie RPG Avernum 2: Crystal Souls HD popped up on the App Store earlier this week. But now it's gone, and it ain't coming back.

In a post on the game's forums, Spiderweb Software's Jeff Vogel says that "changes in iOS 8.3 completely broke the engine we have been using for the last several years".

While he first told fans that "we will hopefully track down the bug and get a fixed version to Apple very soon," he soon threw in the towel, and said " to continue development would requiring licensing and learning a whole new engine"

"The low potential earnings just doesn't make it worthwhile."

It's true that Apple's updates can break some games. Both The World Ends with You and Jet Set Radio have been nuked from the App Store due to compatibility issues with iOS 8.

Luckily, only a tiny fraction of games are affected by iOS updates and most of those suffer small bugs that can be fixed in a patch. And all App Store developers are given early access to new firmware to make sure their apps are compatible.

Plus, it's easy to point the finger at Apple when it may in fact be poor coding from the developer, or a failure to follow best practices.

A Reddit user found that The World Ends with You was broken because "iOS 8 changed some directories around. TWEWY looks for the hardcoded path to its data files instead of a relative directory. So it is shoddy programming in the first place since directory conventions may always be subject to change".

The user was able to fix the problem and get the game running on iOS 8, for anyone with a jailbroken device, "in like one minute".

But for Spiderweb, overcoming the issues with Avernum would be "more work than justified".

Vogel also says that "frenzied" competition on the App Store has lead to a massive drop in sales of Spiderweb's games, "and the cost of advertising them has shot through the roof".

The firm's existing iOS games - that's Avadon 1 and 2, and Avernum 1 and 6 - will remain available. "As soon as Apple makes changes that makes it impossible to support them, they will be removed".