For context, there was this company called Playdeo that made two IOS exclusive apps around 2019: Avo and Mystery Coast. They were games that featured live action video mixed with AR visuals and technology. These two games were some of the first I downloaded on my first iPhone, and were very formative little apps. However, in 2022, both apps were delisted. And since they weren’t on the Google Play Store, they couldn’t be conventionally archived.
Fast forward to today, where I didn’t know this information. I still had the apps, had no clue you couldn’t redownload them anymore, and was going through a cleansing of any apps I didn’t want or need. I decided to keep both apps and gave them both a quick look.
Opening Avo, I had every purchasable episode downloaded. So, if I was lost in the story, I could just start from episode one.
Mystery Coast on the other hand wasn’t structured like this and had no in-app function to delete your data. So, in a spur of the moment, ill-informed decision, I decided to delete Mystery Coast and its data with hopes of redownloading it to start from scratch.
It’s only once I couldn’t find the game in the App Store search or my download history that I found out it wasn’t accessible anymore. What’s worse is that, while Avo has been archived on Archive.org, I could find no such thing for Mystery Coast, meaning I just got rid of a chance to save it for future generations like a dumb dumb.
If I still had the game, I would have found a way to archive it. But I can’t undo what I did now. So, from the bottom of my heart, I am so so so sorry to the lost media community and anyone who played Mystery Coast back when it was alive. I have failed you by being an idiot.
TL;DR, I accidentally deleted an app that was delisted back in 2022 and hadn’t been archived. I didn’t know it was delisted, and deleted it in hopes of starting it from scratch, and regret my decision immensely.
Comments
Bro I once deleted an old game thinking I’ll just reinstall it late and it was gone forever. That sinking feeling is real.
And this is a great example of how these tightly controlled walled gardens suck.
Cloud backups can’t always restore delisted app binaries.
Didn’t someone sell a phone with flappy bird installed for some ridiculous amount of money after that got delisted.
You didn’t fck up today, you fcked up in 2022 by not backing it up. But hey, at least now you’re a cautionary tale for the rest of us.
If it’s lost media why is the website still up with a link to the app on the app store?
Also there are other sites with “download now” available.
Like lost media, the idea that you might unknowingly throw away something historically rare is scary to me. For example, imagine having a super rare, discontinued physical old game copy without realizing its value, and one day, you just sell it for dirt cheap or toss it in the trash.