A few days after the Charlestown shooting, iOS games that featured the Confederate flag have been removed from the Apple store.
This was first noted by TouchArcade, who specifically found that Ultimate General Gettysburg, as well as Hunter Cow’s Civil war games, including Tank Battle 1942, had been pulled from listings on the store. Later outlets confirmed that a search for civil war games on the App Store shows that games that featured the flag had been completely wiped off the marketplace. Developers were sent removal letters by Apple, explaining that their apps did not comply with Section 19.1 of the App Store guidelines:
19.1 Apps containing references or commentary about a religious, cultural or ethnic group that are defamatory, offensive, mean-spirited or likely to expose the targeted group to harm or violence will be rejected.
Apple has historically been obtuse and harsh about rejecting apps, but since 2010, these review guidelines have helped developers verify how to get their apps reviewed by Apple. In general, Apple’s guidelines err on the conservative side, designed to avoid any issues with pornography, violence, and legal issues, alongside user experience and other general guidelines.
In this case, Apple’s decision has mostly fallen on historical Civil War reenactment apps, but only for having the flag in its iconography. Civil War apps and games without the flag remain, and of course the apps can be resubmitted without it.
Actually, Apple’s move was predictable, since CEO Tim Cook expressed these sentiments earlier last week:
My thoughts are with the victim's families in SC.Let us honor their lives by eradicating racism & removing the symbols & words that feed it.
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) June 21, 2015
Ultimate General: Gettysburg’s developer, Maxi m Zasov of Game Labs, has since shared this statement accepting Apple’s decision.
We accept Apple's decision and understand that this is a sensitive issue for the American Nation. We wanted our game to be the most accurate, historical, playable reference of the Battle of Gettysburg. All historical commanders, unit composition and weaponry, key geographical locations to the smallest streams or farms are recreated in our game's battlefield.
We receive a lot of letters of gratitude from American teachers who use our game in history curriculum to let kids experience one of the most important battles in American history from the Commander's perspective.
Spielberg’s "Schindler's List" did not try to amend his movie to look more comfortable. The historical "Gettysburg" movie (1993) is still on iTunes. We believe that all historical art forms: books, movies, or games such as ours, help to learn and understand history, depicting events as they were. True stories are more important to us than money.
Therefore we are not going to amend the game's content and Ultimate General: Gettysburg will no longer be available on AppStore. We really hope that Apple’s decision will achieve the desired results. We can’t change history, but we can change the future.
Did you use these Civil War apps prior to their removal? What do you think of Apple’s decision? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
