Apple Rejects War Game For Depicting Germans, Russians As Enemies

[Dragonlayer]

Despite the game being an obvious Panzer General clone, this is utterly ridicolous. Also, this isn't about race, since there are only white soldiers. We're talking about nazis and soviet communists here.

The Uzbek tankers from my example were "only white soldiers"?

Nazis also had a lot of non-white soldiers.

Yeah, including Uzbeks, too.

Reminds me of that Korean fellow who was conscripted by the Japanese, captured by the Soviets, conscripted into the Red Army then captured and conscripted by the Germans before surrendering to the US in Normandy - unfortunately I can't quite remember his name, but that's one hell of a story to tell right there!

 

[Strazdas]

"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,"

This is not acceptable. they must change the review guidelines.

The current times don't change well known history. It takes longer to make a game like this than the current problems have been in the news. This is very likely a innocent game.

its actually a sequel to a game that came out before the Crimea business started, so its definitely an innocent game.

Try and make a game where you're fighting against the US. That should go over well.

I wish somone would have the balls and funding to create a decent game where you are an SS soldier fighting americans. Best we have now is strategy games where you can choose USA as one of your opponents.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

Apple...is run by retards.

If Steve 'I'm going to die even faster by embracing fake medicine' Jobs wasn't bad enough...
Now there's THESE morons!

At least Jobs was market savvy enough to avoid PR incidents like this one, say what you want, he was one heck of a salesman.

 

[Tien Shen]

Reminds me of that Korean fellow who was conscripted by the Japanese, captured by the Soviets, conscripted into the Red Army then captured and conscripted by the Germans before surrendering to the US in Normandy - unfortunately I can't quite remember his name, but that's one hell of a story to tell right there!

Yeah I heard that one, there's some photo [http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8lnokhrAd1r0bqbdo1_500.jpg] of him out there on the internet dressed in German uniform as he's being questioned by Allied soldiers. Apparently he migrated to the US after WW2 and died in Illinois in 1992.

 

[snekadid]

I thought we all agreed that Nazis and Soviets were considered acceptable targets. That is, past figures of ugly wartime who buy-and-large are dead, gone, and buried (except for like fleeting war criminals who are old as hell and still punished when found). Gimme some perspective here, Apple.

What do you think this is? the 90's? No, the only acceptable enemies now for war video games are middle eastern countries because they aren't real people and killing them by the hundreds won't offend anyone.

 

[Siege_TF]

They could go with 'Communists' and 'Fascists', like in Dark Void. Or they could just make up nonsense names for everything, including the planet. If Studio Ghibli had done that with their latest film it wouldn't have received any criticism at all, and Mayazaki could have just waited a year or two before going "Ha! I was Japan all along!".

Although I imagine that'd be more of a Peter Molyneux thing.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

I thought Nazis and communists were okay to demonize? No?
Guess you'll juts have to throw in zombies instead. Or vikings.
What's next on the list of guilt-free enemies?

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

fucking absurd

is stuff like this that makes me think lowly of mobile gaming, well one of the many



well they could always rename the factions to "the western empire of bad guys" and "the eastern republic of equally awful"

 

[Chaos Marine]

Fifteen million? Wut? I think you need to revise that estimate, it was upwards of twenty five million dead.

 

[Micalas]

This is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard today. Who besides the war criminals are being offended here?

 

[JoshuaMadoc]

The most ridiculous thing about this article is why the *fuck* do developers keep trying to make iOS games like this one, despite knowing that Apple doesn't like anything remotely thought-provoking.

Actually, no, don't answer that question. I'm pretty sure the logic is that iOS is popular, so SURELY people will buy more. Which is arguably even dumber logic because you'd either hit it big or get slapped in the wrist by big nanny Apple for daring to be philosophical.

Really, have they learned *nothing* from Apple's past behavior?

 

[bfure1]

Reminds me of that Korean fellow who was conscripted by the Japanese, captured by the Soviets, conscripted into the Red Army then captured and conscripted by the Germans before surrendering to the US in Normandy - unfortunately I can't quite remember his name, but that's one hell of a story to tell right there!

Yeah I heard that one, there's some photo [http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8lnokhrAd1r0bqbdo1_500.jpg] of him out there on the internet dressed in German uniform as he's being questioned by Allied soldiers. Apparently he migrated to the US after WW2 and died in Illinois in 1992.

There is a Korean movie about his story I'm pretty sure it takes a lot of artistic freedoms with the truth but it is still a damn good movie (if you don't mind subtitles.)
It is called "My Way"

 

[Dragonlayer]

Reminds me of that Korean fellow who was conscripted by the Japanese, captured by the Soviets, conscripted into the Red Army then captured and conscripted by the Germans before surrendering to the US in Normandy - unfortunately I can't quite remember his name, but that's one hell of a story to tell right there!

Yeah I heard that one, there's some photo [http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8lnokhrAd1r0bqbdo1_500.jpg] of him out there on the internet dressed in German uniform as he's being questioned by Allied soldiers. Apparently he migrated to the US after WW2 and died in Illinois in 1992.

I remember first reading about him in one of Antony Beevor's history books - sidenote: go read anything by Antony Beevor, he's excellent - like some of the Asiatic peoples who found themselves in German uniform, the US troops thought the dude was a Japanese auxiliary serving with the Heer. Speaking of which, gotta love how quickly that whole "Master Race" thang fell apart in the face of horrific casualties and Cossacks, Mongols, Indians and the like ended up in feldgrau.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Wait, THIS is Apple's policy?:
"Specifically, we noticed that your app depicts (a) real entity as the enemies."

Unless I'm reading that wrong, it seems like you can't ever depict any 'real entity' as an enemy. So not only does that mean any WW2 game would be unacceptable, so would any game based around any actual historical war. Not only that, even a fictional game which uses a real world nation as the enemy (ie. Homefront, the majority of Call of Duty games, Command and Conquer: Generals, etc.) would be considered unacceptable.

Technically, this would mean the first Half-Life is unacceptable, since you're fighting US Marines, any of the Total War games, Civilization, Crusader Kings, the list goes on and on. This may be the dumbest policy I've ever heard.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Wait, THIS is Apple's policy?:
"Specifically, we noticed that your app depicts (a) real entity as the enemies."

Unless I'm reading that wrong, it seems like you can't ever depict any 'real entity' as an enemy. So not only does that mean any WW2 game would be unacceptable, so would any game based around any actual historical war. Not only that, even a fictional game which uses a real world nation as the enemy (ie. Homefront, the majority of Call of Duty games, Command and Conquer: Generals, etc.) would be considered unacceptable.

Technically, this would mean the first Half-Life is unacceptable, since you're fighting US Marines, any of the Total War games, Civilization, Crusader Kings, the list goes on and on. This may be the dumbest policy I've ever heard.

Homefront actually has a non-existant "Greater Korean Republic" or whatever.

Well ok, but even in that case they could argue that the "real entity" is the people of Korea, therefore it violates their policy.

 

[Tien Shen]

Reminds me of that Korean fellow who was conscripted by the Japanese, captured by the Soviets, conscripted into the Red Army then captured and conscripted by the Germans before surrendering to the US in Normandy - unfortunately I can't quite remember his name, but that's one hell of a story to tell right there!

Yeah I heard that one, there's some photo [http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8lnokhrAd1r0bqbdo1_500.jpg] of him out there on the internet dressed in German uniform as he's being questioned by Allied soldiers. Apparently he migrated to the US after WW2 and died in Illinois in 1992.

I remember first reading about him in one of Antony Beevor's history books - sidenote: go read anything by Antony Beevor, he's excellent - like some of the Asiatic peoples who found themselves in German uniform, the US troops thought the dude was a Japanese auxiliary serving with the Heer. Speaking of which, gotta love how quickly that whole "Master Race" thang fell apart in the face of horrific casualties and Cossacks, Mongols, Indians and the like ended up in feldgrau.

Don't forget Arabs, Tatars and Turks. There's a whole list of various 'non-master race' units in the German military in WW2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkic,_Caucasian,_Cossack,_and_Crimean_collaborationism_with_the_Axis_powers

It gets better, Hitler himself protected his commanding officer from WW1 who was Jewish. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/9379575/Adolf-Hitler-protected-his-Jewish-former-commanding-officer.html

 

[Dragonlayer]

Reminds me of that Korean fellow who was conscripted by the Japanese, captured by the Soviets, conscripted into the Red Army then captured and conscripted by the Germans before surrendering to the US in Normandy - unfortunately I can't quite remember his name, but that's one hell of a story to tell right there!

Yeah I heard that one, there's some photo [http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8lnokhrAd1r0bqbdo1_500.jpg] of him out there on the internet dressed in German uniform as he's being questioned by Allied soldiers. Apparently he migrated to the US after WW2 and died in Illinois in 1992.

I remember first reading about him in one of Antony Beevor's history books - sidenote: go read anything by Antony Beevor, he's excellent - like some of the Asiatic peoples who found themselves in German uniform, the US troops thought the dude was a Japanese auxiliary serving with the Heer. Speaking of which, gotta love how quickly that whole "Master Race" thang fell apart in the face of horrific casualties and Cossacks, Mongols, Indians and the like ended up in feldgrau.

Don't forget Arabs, Tatars and Turks. There's a whole list of various 'non-master race' units in the German military in WW2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkic,_Caucasian,_Cossack,_and_Crimean_collaborationism_with_the_Axis_powers

It gets better, Hitler himself protected his commanding officer from WW1 who was Jewish. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/9379575/Adolf-Hitler-protected-his-Jewish-former-commanding-officer.html

"The glorious armies of the invincible Aryan Fatherland shall march to glory and conqu- shit, we just lost three entire army groups! You there, disgusting untermensch dog freedom loving anti-Bolshevik, join the Waffen SS and help us out! We'll totally make it worth your while!"