Does someone wants to put my game on AppStore

Hi, I already said it I’m a hobbyst developper.
One of my program is a game SMasterMind
I don’t have an Apple developper account and I don’t want to have one yet.
I suppose a game like that would be simple to modify to be accepted on AppStore, but in fact I have no idea of what should be done.

  • This game is donationware but would not be free on AppStore (1 € ?)
  • I want to keep the hand on te modification -> I would like the person tell me what to change (if not too more work).
  • The person who accept put his name in the developper : Mister XXX & Thomas ROBiSSON
  • The person keep the money and if he earn a lot he give me back half from time to time. If he earn 50 € I don’t care, if he earn 100 or 200 € he give me the half. If he earn 100000 € he goes away and I create my own Apple account :blush: .

If someone is ok, answer here. I will send the project, but please note I’m a hobbyist, I’m not the first developper of this game. A friend began it with RealBasic many years ago (in the last century), there were App.DoEvents everywhere. I made a lot of modification but I didn’t rewrite all the source code.

Last things, I don’t know if the name SMasterMind is protected.

True: - best business plan I have read in a while :slight_smile:

More seriously: beside something nasty called taxes, which the owner has only to pay at a later stage (depending on the country etc.), I believe this a bit more complex the you imagine. Firstly the uploader will be legally accountable for the app and has to fulfill Apple’s obligation from the terms & conditions (that paper no one is usually reading). Plus he or she must be able to react short time if there are nasty bugs, deal with potential questions for a refund etc., you name it. Not talking about legal risks, that it is not totally your code etc.

No one is forcing you to use MAS. Unless you have the super trooper app it will anyways difficult these days to make significant amount of money. Well, and if you are lucky then it will easily become a fulltime job ;-). Apple doesn’t care too much about what your app is all about (unless you develop a health app, or something around drugs, potential illegal stuff, …) in comparison to how well it is developed and fulfills their UI, sandboxing, signing etc. recommendations and requirements, basically all these insights you will get for the price of your developer account.

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You would need to pay me a lot to go through the review process for another app. The AppStore review is between taxes and a root canal. Seriously, terribly annoying.

And before you need to do the needful preparation for the AppStore. Entitlements and all the other useless things that are necessary for the AppStore.

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Plus: these days you will have to offer a free version, and only make extra feature paid ones via MAS. Don’t shoot the messenger please, that’s just how it works for Games. Is your App ready for this? Most likely not, then it is better to build an own fancy webpage for it, and “sell” it on your own.

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Not possible. A developer account takes the name of ONE person, or the name of the company.

Making the app not free will eventually give you a revenue of 10€ per year… if you are lucky.
MAS and iOS AppStore work much better with in-app purchases.

Furthermore, HASBRO have a registered trademark for Mastermind name: MASTERMIND (Marques) - Data INPI
https://data.inpi.fr/marques/EM000267146#EM000267146

They might even have a patent for the game.

I am sure you put a lot of time into making this app, but I do not recommend trying to release it on the App Store.

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As someone who has gone through the pain of making their app IAP at Apple’s request (to get it into the App Store) I can safely say, that it is not worth it.

Recently I’ve also started to see a worrying pattern with IAP. In that people are purchasing the product and requesting a refund the very same day. Unless your application uses a subscription, these items stay purchased, and so these customers are getting the product for free. We provide a full 30-day trial of the product, so this isn’t people buying to try it out.

We make far more money from our similar apps which are not using IAP, and get less refunds.

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Wow! :-(. I don’t now how if it still the case, but I remember that Apple had a threshold how often / frequently a user can request refunds. I would expect them still checking this, but obviously this doesn’t help you as the targeted producer … sad news.

Is it not possible to use the Steam and/or the Big Fish platform to release your game? It is indeed very sad that people buy something and then immediatelly ask for a refund but still are allowed to use the purchased product.

When I ask a refund, that is something of a last resort. But gamers are not business people. A serious business will chase a good relationship with their suppliers.

Try to go for a subscription model for your game. However, your game needs to be good. Bringing another mastermind game besides of the patents and copyrights violations, will not help your case either.

Be orginal, follow an online course how to design and create your own games. Then you are in business after a lot of marketing efforts.

I hope you succeed in chasing your game creation dreams.

Are you talking about the MAS or iOS App Store ?

The MAS is hardly the only place where to distribute macOS donationware.

Check out https://appvisor.com. They can put your app in hundreds of software repositories, such as softonic.com, softpedia.com for instance.

If you decidedly cannot afford that, google “Mac shareware”, and submit individually to each repository for free.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

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Because the product sells really poorly through the App Store, it is easy to spot. A sale one day and a refund the next.

I think what is frustrating is that I have no interaction with the customer, so I don’t know if there is a genuine problem or this is just a scam. At least on my own site (which makes more sales) when the very occasional person wants a refund, I can inquire why.
Yes, sometimes I’ve messed up and there is a problem, I then do my best to try to fix it.

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Thank you all for your answer. I was talking about AppStore, my game runs under Mac OS X and Windows.
All my softwares are listed on MacUpdate, and I manage them (I update the website listing when I update my Apps). Some of my Apps are listed on other websites (Softpedia etc. ) but I don’t manage them.
Yesterday I saw an update of a MasterMing game on the AppStore, and I said to myself that my game could be there.
I have no idea of the time it could take to sometimes who know the way to add an Apps to the AppStore to add my game. I thought it was an hour or two (if the person know the Apple rules). But effectively, it it will generate only a few income, don’t waste time.

Beatrix, I’m not sure to understand what you wrote. You would re-read all my code to be sure I won’t diffuse a virus hiding myself behind another person?

I forgot about Big Fish, we worked with them over a decade ago.

Can I be honest? Mastermind games are a dime of dozen. Not sure if you can make money with this on the AppStore.

Just my 2C

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There is a patent on the Mastermind game until 26 March 2026. I think it is not a good idea to release this game, even for free. The penalties for infringing copyrights are high.

I tried your Mastermind game and it looks really nice. The game play is very intuitive and the graphics are beautiful. What I like to see is the player set the color combination for the computer.

This is truly a nice game but sadly breaks Hasbro’s patent. Be more creative and design your own game idea! For a person with your talent, that should not be impossible.

Good luck! Keep the good work going!

Chris

Thank you :blush: . My goal was not to earn money but was to have one of my Apps on the AppStore. And I thought this one (simple game which doesn’t access to the Finder files etc.) would be the simple to make compatible with Apple rules.
I don’t want to make it free because it is already free (donationware) on my website, if a person want Apple way of distribution, he pay the Apple price. And in order to pay the person who would have done the job to add it on the AppStore.

My friend who first developp the game is very good for graphic, it is his job. But he’s very bad in mathematic. When I tried his SMasterMind, I never won because the indication given by the computer were false :confused: . I became angry when I discover the problem :triumph: :smiley: .
Then I asked him the code and corrected that and I added many features.
I met this guy downloading his applications and we’re friend in real life now.

In other thread someone gave me the shell command “codesign -s - PathToMyApp” I did it on some of my Apps and as the return was “resource fork, Finder information, or similar detritus not allowed” I entered “xattr -lr PathToMyApp”.
I see AppleScript are not allowed, I’m not surprise. But the .wav aren’t ??? I use .wav because of the Windows build. Some .png seem to cause trouble too.
Pfffff, you’re right it is not simple :persevere:

Did you read about the patent? That means you cannot even publish it for free.

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Yes I read, I won’t put it on AppStore. May I change the name in order not have “MasterMind” in it ? Do you think other people who made masterMind game ask for to the patent ?

As you gave me the shell command " codesign -s -" in the other thread I tried it, and the result push me to ask other questions. Just to understand, not to put it on AppStore.

It is not only about the game, and it is definitely not about what others think, YOU are on the hook. As the French are saying: “Nul n’est censé ignorer la loi” which translates to “nobody is supposed to ignore the law” and this even applies if you don’t know the law, don’t understand it, or are not aware of it. I made some research for you in Germany:

At least in Germany, Hasbro registered the patent and the words “MASTERMIND” and “MASTER MIND”, so if they want to be nasty, you will have fun with them, it is as simple as that. Of course, there are limits to this. For instance, you could probably call an app BMW for “Binary Modul Watcher” as long as it clearly has no commonality with the car manufacturer. But you definitely should not try to build or sell anything called BMW and being related to automotive stuff and you do the very best not trying to do anything like this.

In Germany, this is often discussed for company names for instance. One trick is to add your first- and Lastname to it. e.g. Jeannot Muller BMW. But I would not try this if would work as a freelance in the automotive area. but perhaps if it stands for Beer-Master-Watch. Now in your case, you are not using TR Mastermind for something completely different, but exactly for the original game and that means that you are living on the edge. In Germany, you could probably sell shoes called Xojo or create an Asian dish, called Xojo, but don’t try to build an app called xojo … On a side note: That the risk stays with you is defined by Apple in their terms & conditions. So Mastermind will call Apple or your current Web provider and then those will call you. Unless you are a good lawyer yourself and/or a billionaire I would always stay away from registered words targeting the original context of the patent.

SHELL is a good example. Shell is a common word. You can use it. But don’t try using it with the colors, Logo of the company or anything related to the petrol business ;-).

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It works only if you got a certificate from Apple, part of the developer program.

No that’s not the case. Adhoc signing does not need an Apple dev cert.