Apple rejects Tank Battle 1942 for depicting Germans & Russians as “enemies”

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Apple rejects Tank Battle 1942 for depicting Germans & Russians as "enemies"

You ready for a good head-shaker? Hunted Cow chief Andrew Mullholland just sent me screenshots of the status of Tank Battle: East Front 1942, the followup to the WWII wargame we just reviewed last week. Apple has rejected the game for having Germans and Russians in it. I'm not kidding.

We found that your app contains content or features that include people from a specific race, culture, government, corporation, or other real entity as the enemies in the context of the game, which is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines.

Specifically, we noticed your app depicts real entity as the enemies.

In case you think you've read that wrong, I'll summarise: a World War II-themed game that depicts fighting between two countries that actually fought in WWII breaks the rules. And apparently Drive on Moscow, Panzer Corps, and every single one of Hunted Cow's other Tank Battle games don't.

Ugh.

If this all sounds somewhat familiar to you, it's because Apple rejected Pacific Fleet for including the IJN flag back in 2012, and then rejected GameTheNews' Syrian Civil War game for depicting... Syrians. As I've said before, the problem here isn't the guidelines themselves: hate speech has no place on the App Store. But if Apple's approvals people can't tell that a very run-of-the-mill World War II game isn't hate speech, then we've got problems, man.

I asked Mulholland what he's going to do now. "I really don't know.  I guess we could use 'opposition' [instead of  'enemy']?" Hunted Cow are appealing the decision.

Seriously?  This is why walled gardens suck sweaty donkey dicks.

[Josquius]

This is dumb.

Pacific Fleet for including the IJN flag back in 2012

What?
The Japanese naval ensign is forbidden now?

[Valmy]

Yes if we are depicting violence against it.  Inciting national hatred and all that.

[Viking]

So, we'll never see the Hatfields vs McCoys game in the apples store?

[KRonn]

This is so lame. I guess next these morons will ban books, or websites, that tell the story of WW2 warfare.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Apple should ban itself as it induces negative feelings towards non-apple-platforms.

[The Brain]

Apple should ban itself as it induces negative feelings towards non-apple-platforms.

[Barrister]

This doesn't make much sense to me.  I have some WWII airplane game on my iPhone, it has Americans and Japanese as enemies to each other.

[Josephus]

Apple Store carries Hearts of Iron III--which, though I've never played it, I'm pretty sure has Russians v. Germans...unless P'dox really messed that up.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

This is so lame. I guess next these morons will ban books, or websites, that tell the story of WW2 warfare.

They have decided games are special.  Thus, books and other traditional media are OK.  Just not games.