On Tuesday, casual game publisher Big Fish Games became the first game company to offer a monthly subscription service to its games for iOS devices. The plan was to give users of Apple's iPhone and iPad devices a way to play a variety of games for $4.99 a month. The app streamed the games to the device rather than a download.
Now Bloomberg reports that Apple has now removed the Big Fish Games streaming subscription app from the App Store. The move was made without any prior notice or explanation. Paul Thelen, the founder of Big Fish Games, said he was surprised by Apple's decision, claiming that the company worked with Apple for the past several weeks in order to get the subscription app ready to be released.
Thelen said that Apple had previously approved of the app and even approved of Big Fish's press release announcing the details of the game subscription service. He added, "“We’re trying to follow up with Apple to try to figure out what happened." Apple, as they usually do, declined to comment publicly on the decision to remove the app from Big Fish.
It's possible that Apple didn't quite understand the nature of Big Fish's streaming app and decided to be better safe than sorry. Apple has allowed other streaming apps to be released for its iOS products, including Netflix, Hulu Plus and more.
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