Disney, EA Removes A Ton Of Mobile Games From iOS, Android

With Apple's recent gaming push on the new Apple TV, you would think that gaming is the next hottest thing in mobile. And indeed, analysts have pointed out how lucrative that market has become. Sadly, that has also made it all the more crowded and oversaturated, edging out some titles, including big but older ones. That is probably what led Disney and EA, two of the largest game publishers on iOS and Android, to officially pull the plug on dozens of their games, regardless of how popular they may have been.

EA was actually the first to yank some of its games from the iTunes App Store and Google Play Store. And by "some", we actually mean almost two dozens of titles. Some like Lemonade Tycoon and SPY Mouse we can understand, but Bejeweled 2, Dead Space, and Mass Effect Infiltrator? EA actually removed the games from the app stores last September 1, but that silent announcement went under the radar until recently. Here's a full list of the games:

• Bejeweled 2

• Burnout Crash!

• Dead Space

• Don't Fall Off

• Flight Control

• Flight Control Rocket

• Fly With Me

• Lemonade Tycoon

• Mass Effect Infiltrator

• MMA by EA Sports

• Need for Speed Shift

• Real Racing

• Sims Medieval by EA

• Skate It by EA

• Spore Creatures

• Spore Origins

• SPY Mouse

Disney made its own revelation early this week and the number it had was nearly four times as many. That list included movie tie-ins like Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty and Guardians of the Galaxy: The Universal Weapon, beloved classics like Monkey Island, and verified productivity killers like Star Wars Tiny Death Star.

• Avengers Initiative

• Avengers Initiative Lite

• Captain America Live Wallpaper

• Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty

• Disney Checkout Challenge

• Disney Bola Soccer

• Disney Hidden Worlds

• Disney Infinity: Action!

• Disney Photo Finish

• Disney Pix

• Disney Super Speedway

• Disney XD Grand Prix

• Fix-it Felix Jr.

• Gravity Falls Mystery Shack Attack free and paid

• Guardians of the Galaxy: The Universal Weapon

• JellyCar 2

• JellyCar 3

• JellyCar 3 Lite

• Lone Ranger

• Lost Light

• Marvel: Avengers Alliance

• Marvel Run Jump Smash!

• Mittens

• Mittens HD

• Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: Le Chuck's Revenge

• Monsters, Inc. Run

• Monsters U: Catch Archie

• Phineas and Ferb Arcade

• Pirates of the Caribbean: Master of the Seas

• PIXEL'D

• PIXEL'D Plus

• Stack Rabbit

• Star Wars: Assault Team

• Star Wars: Tiny Death Star

• The Great Piggy Bank Adventure

• The Secret of Monkey Island

• Thor: Son of Asgard

• Toy Story Live Wallpaper

• Toy Story: Smash It!

• Where's My Summer?

• Where's My Water? Featuring XYY

• Winnie the Pooh Wallpaper

• Wreck-it Ralph

In both cases, the companies' reason for stopping support or pulling out games was to focus on putting in more recent and high quality games. It's an understandable goal, though we won't be surprised if what they really mean is putting in even more games of the same kind that they took out, not all of them equally good.

The situation does, however, highlight one of the problems with the current mobile gaming market. Unlike with PC or console games, especially those that have physical discs available, when a publisher ceases support for a title, there are still myriads of legitimate ways to get your hands on a copy, unless the game has been out of print for years. In contrast, when a developer yanks a game or even an app from a mobile app store, they're gone for good, unless you happen to have bought or installed them at least once before. The only way around it, then, would be to break a few rules to obtain an unauthorized, and potentially malware-ridden, copy.

VIA: DroidGamers, Pocket Gamer