Apple Removes Weed Firm from App Store

[roseofbattle]

Apple Removes Weed Firm from App Store

The developer of Weed Firm said Apple removed the game once it reached the top spot in all categories of the App Store.

Apple has removed Weed Firm from the App Store after it reached number one in the store. Weed Firm developer Manitoba Games stated the game's removal was "entirely Apple's decision."

Players grow and sell weed in Weed Firm, a subject that Apple is more likely to have problems with. However, many other apps containing the word "Weed" in the title are still available on the App Store. For example, Weed Tycoon and Weed Farmer are both games about growing marijuana, but these two games and many other apps are still live on the store. The difference is that Weed Firm became popular in the store. This is why Manitoba Games believes Weed Firm has been singled out.

"We guess the problem was that the game was just too good and got to number one in All Categories, since there are certainly a great number of weed-based apps still available, as well as games promoting other so-called 'illegal activities' such as shooting people, crashing cars, and throwing birds at buildings," Manitoba Games states on its website.

The developer plans to get Weed Firm back onto the App Store, but it expects the iOS version of the game will need to be censored to comply with Apple. The game is also no longer available on the Google Play Store, but Manitoba Games stated this was due to a problem with the publisher rather than the game itself. Weed Firm will have a high maturity rating to discourage children from playing.

"We do not want kids playing Weed Firm, but we firmly believe that adults should have a choice to do whatever the hell they want as long as they are not hurting anybody in the process," Manitoba Games wrote.

Source: TechCrunch [http://manitobagames.net/]


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[epicdwarf]

So Apple takes down a few games involving growing weed, but lets radically anti-consumer farmville knock-offs slide? Maybe Apple should work on some real quality control instead of this shit.

 

[fezgod]

If kids can buy fucking GTA from the App store, they're being exposed to things that are a lot worse than growing marijuana:

prostitution
murder
racketeering

 

[erbi79]

These are the companies which have such an authoritarian agenda I'd almost call them fascist, but they are capitalists in the truest definition of the word.

Profiting from free market, promotiong it superficially, but in reality they are fundamentally opposed to true freedom and just seek power and profit.

Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and so many others are the worst on the software and electronics market and have been for a long time. I don't even care about this game, I am just so fundamentally sick of these corporations and their politics. But what drives me crazy is how the uninformed, ignorant and egocentrics just keep feeding them money and then complain when the power they have willingly given is abused.

We reap what we sow, and apparently since about 1990 we have been sowing some crazy shit ^^

 

[Strazdas]

ok this is jut getting ridiculous. Apple seesm to be removing games randomly just got the kicks now.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

There has to be something that we're missing from this story. Some kind of "behind the scenes" legal trouble between Apple and Manitoba that we've missed or hasn't been leaked to the public yet.

I find it simply impossible to believe that Apple is deliberately removing content for promoting an illegal activity so harmless and innocuous (your mileage may vary on these descriptions) as growing and selling weed. As other people have pointed out, there are plenty of other apps that promote illegal actions, so this just seems.... weird. There has to be something we're missing, some mandate from Apple or some fuss between them and Manitoba. I don't want to believe that Apple, silly a company as they are, is actually this stupid.