If you were present in 2016 you’ll probably remember the craze that was Color Switch, yeah, that mobile game where you tap a ball all the while dodging moving objects; the game was a major hit but like every trend it died out hence why I was not surprised to see no chatter after the game was removed from both the iOS and Play store in December last year but this didn’t mean I wasn’t curious. After some digging, I found out why.
Color Switch creator (David Reichelt) and his team issued a statement recently on their official website about the takedown:
“The past two years have been an amazing ride for Color Switch and we are so grateful for all of our loyal fans and players. As of December 22nd, the Color Switch app has been taken down by the former publisher because they are holding our game hostage. We’ve worked very hard to avoid this situation and we are very sorry to let you, our players, down.
We are a small independent game studio that believes games should be about fun for everyone and not just about business. To all artists, builders, students, dreamers, creators and pioneers, there are times in life where you have to make a stand for what you know is right. This is one of those times for Color Switch.
Every action begins with a thought. We never could have imagined our journey would take us around the world meeting players of all ages who love our game. Our team is so thankful for all your support and we are ready to bring you even more in 2018! We thank you for your patience while we put the finishing touches on our next game. Please enter your contact info below so we can share when Color Switch is available again along with our brand new games!
Sincerely,
The Color Switch Team”
To put it short this is a common case of publishers screwing their workers over and this happens way too often; for example, in the Youtube community many point fingers and accuse Machinima of taking their content creators hostage until they make enough money to buy themselves out of the contract. Leafyishere and Clash are just two of the YouTubers who managed to buy themselves out but warn others of signing with the company.
In the video game industry easily the worst case of screwing over is EA and their countless studios acquired, being pushed to make games without love and compassion contrast to other studios with publishers ran by decent human beings (*cough cough Nintendo*). Fortafy (the publishers of Color Switch) did help David significantly, however, boosting his revenue and helping him take the game from unknown to number one in 100 countries.
Luckily Color Switch is coming back and might be coming back under the same name as David has access to both the Color Switch website and official Twitter account. Regardless, we can’t wait to see what’s next for the small team and we wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors. Weirdly enough Color Switch is still regularly updated with the most recent being a summer-themed update containing two new game modes and a few balls.