Apple’s selective prudery when it comes to approving games for the iTunes store is well known. It’s still worth mocking, as one indie developer is doing — pixel by pixel.
Hot Mess (pictured) is the upcoming game that Atlanta-based Secret Library can’t get approved. In the game, you play as a “malfunctioning, fire-fighting robot who mistakes the fires of love and compassion for those which he needs to extinguish.
In plainer English, “You run around spraying naked people … that’s the pitch.”
It’s a pitch and Apple has balked. A first edition of the game had a butt-nekkid couple embracing, even if no boobie or weiner was shown (the game is done in a low-res style.) That got a big thumbs down under App Store rule 16.1, which sounds like it should be cited by an officious man in a hardhat carrying a clipboard. Basically, it covers crude content.
Secret Library added “about 20 white pixels to simulate underwear” and resubmitted the game, reports Pocketgamer. That didn’t work either!
Rejected again! “Specifically, we noticed your app displays a barely dressed couple kissing.” Well, HOT MESS might be more like WARM MESS.
— Secret Library (@Secret_Library) November 5, 2013
Secret Library dashed off an appeal that was “one of the more surreal letters I’ve ever written,” the studio tweeted, “invoked the cultural iconography of hearts, Walt Disney, and the MPAA.”
The plan now, says designer Nick Ralabate, is to slowly and painstakingly add clothing and pixels until the game clears the submission process. It’s a kind of a reverse strip-poker — or “some digital re-enactment of the ‘walk of shame,” Ralabate said.
Apple rejects bonkers indie game Hot Mess twice because of pixel-art smooching [Pocketgamer]
Comments
2 responses to “Maker Of Rejected ‘Crude’ Game Trolls Apple With Reverse Striptease”
So… Chinatown wars is ok, but don’t even make people think someone might be naked.
Not going to pick on the morality of it since everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, but let’s face it, it’s pretty damn amusing.
Apple is such a bunch of squares for people who bill themselves as hip and cutting edge.
OK, this game gets nixed yet way back they approved Baby Shaker.
Trying to f-f-f-f-ind log-g-g–gic herererererererererererererererererer.
STOP: 0x000042
Brain has become non-responsive and has been shut down to preserve human function….
Edit: It’s not just nudity that can get your app rejected. From what I know, you can also be rejected for:
* Deviating too far from the iPhone/iPad UI Design Guidelines,
* Using protected API calls (which Apple never clearly documents),
* Submitting an app that is too similar to an Apple developed app,
* Using code with a licensing agreement that conflicts with the app store developer agreement (see the App Store version of VLC to see what happened).