Channels & viewing

[jeffrok]

long long long long time Roku user here (since 2008!)..

I've had Hogoword on my Rokus since 2011, and as of today this great time killer of a game has disappeared.

It's not a "code" game.. At one time it was part of the channel store. At one time there was also a Hogoword Pro version..

I literally was playing this game on my Roku Tv yesterday, and today, it's just gone. Even though it was a certified app at one time.

Roku, please do what you can to re-add this app to the Channel Store, so users. can download this game again.

For those wondering, this game was very similar to Wordle, but harder, because it didn't tell you the position of the correctly guessed letters. It only told you if you had letters int he correct position or not in the correct position, but they were indicated by different colored "lights" on the screen, next to the word. Think Mastermind with words.

It was fun, and I wish you'd add it back.

[mikebdoss]

Same problem here. Doesn't look like the developer knows anything about it (and he no longer works on the game, or Roku as a platform). I'm wondering if Wordle is taking down similar games for some legal reason. Sucks too, because I paid for the pro version, and still played it.

[LemonChiffon]

Yes, just noticed today when I went to play and we had the .99c paid version that kept score.  

It was a great game and used some of that grey matter.   Another negative for Roku. 

[fluke]

It looks like this was published by Hogofilm which had a website by the same name but ending in .com.  The Wayback Machine (archive.org) shows that their website went down around 2017.  My best guess is that the Roku app hasn't be maintained since then either.

Removal of unmaintained apps has become an industry trend.  There are only a couple app stores that I can think of that have apps that haven't been updated for an extended period of time but continue to be available for those that purchase them.  Both Google and Apple have also removed unmaintained apps for their app stores.

While this is clearly is frustrating for the customers, it accomplishes two major things for the company running the app store to make sure apps are still maintained:

1) They can work with the developer to make sure deprecated operating system functions are no longer used.  This allows the operating system to evolve while remaining streamlined.

2) The app store company can make sure someone is taking responsibility for complying with laws regarding the app such as privacy laws (GDPR, California, etc).

Valve's Steam store seems to be one of the few exceptions to the trend of removing unmaintained apps.  They will remove the option to buy the unmaintained game but for those that bought it they still make it available for download.  This doesn't guarantee the game will continue to run, just that it is still available.

But there is a key difference.  You can install Windows XP in a virtual machine and then install a game that requires XP onto that.  It is a security nightmare but you can still attempt to do it.

With Roku, there is no previous Roku OS.  Even if you buy an used Roku that has a previous version, it should automatically update to the latest version.  If it is so old it no longer support Roku OS updates then it will likely eventually also lose access to the Roku channel store.  The concept of installing Roku OS v9 in a virtual machine to run channel apps that depend on that version doesn't exist with Roku.

I think this will have a chilling effect on customers that will continue to be willing to buy app/games on Roku.  However, I am not sure that will have much of a negative impact on the current business model of Roku which seems to have become much more focus on video streaming only.