What happened to Wonderbox?

As I understand it: the game was created as an Apple Arcade exclusive that recently reached its end/renewal. Since the company was purchased by Epic, I’m guessing one, or both, weren’t interested in renewing (Apple and Epic have drama).

Really disappointed. We subscribed Apple Arcade for this game specifically and hoped it would go to the regular App Store if it ever left Arcade.

Won’t let my kids get into other Arcade games right now. Not going through this again (Our special needs son was crushed to lose everything he worked on.) It could happen to other digital games on other platforms, but Arcade seems especially susceptible to this and Apple doesn’t seem to care.

It was my autistic son's favourite game. It's a tough time for all of us now. He spent all his life building worlds in this game.

The Wonderbox developer sold out to another company.

This game was the ONLY REASON I subscribed to Apple Arcade. Now that it’s gone, I have no reason to keep paying for something I never use now. It’s just such a shame that the one game that made it worth it isn’t even on the AppStore any more. Just so disappointed.

jlmpka wrote:

It could happen to other digital games on other platforms, but Arcade seems especially susceptible to this and Apple doesn’t seem to care.

The developer has many options to monetize their game:

• Purchase price
• In-App Purchase
• Subscription
• Ads
• Apple Arcade

The game developer will ways compare the income with the cost to develop and maintain support for the game. At any time they can choose a different model or even decide to no longer offer the game. Since Apple does not own the games, we are left with whatever the developer chooses. Not sure why you are putting the blame on Apple.

I didn’t put blame on anyone, I said Arcade seems susceptible to this kind of thing, I would add especially for Exclusives developed for Arcade.

When I say Apple doesn’t seem to care, I’m simply saying it doesn’t bother them. They’re fine with their model as it is, obviously.

The issue could be the issues between Apple and Epic, Epic not caring much about the company/games they acquired or maybe they just don’t want to put the resources into reworking it for monetization, who knows, could be a million things. I didn’t think there was a need to go on further about Epic on an Apple forum.

nikirocks said:

6-year-olds don't have an adult concept of time.

They actually have a shorter attention span and can be guided to new activities much easier. I find the older we get, the harder it is to deviate from what we are used to doing. Developers can pull their apps from the store at any time. It costs them money as well as time to continue to update the apps and they are independant from Apple and make their own choices.

My 6 year old is devastated.

6-year-olds don’t have an adult concept of time.

It has been gone since 3/21/24, almost 2 months ago.

Okay, what is your point? He recently got into Minecraft and just decided to return to Wonderbox only to find that it had vanished. Is that fact that it's been gone for 2 months supposed to make him feel better?

mkshannon224 wrote:

My 6 year old is devastated.

It has been gone since 3/21/24, almost 2 months ago.