Not for the first time, and not for the last either, a strategy game on the App Store has been removed because it featured “people from a specific government or other real entity as the enemies”. In this case, the Taliban.
Apple’s long-standing and long-stupid policy has been affecting historically accurate (or at least historically related) games for years now; as far back as 2011, when Pacific Strike was yanked for featuring Japanese flags.
The latest victim is Slitherine’s Afghanistan ‘11, a port of a PC game that came out last year. A somewhat hardcore strategy game, which involves all kinds of “hearts and minds”, recon, supply and intel work alongside combat, it was removed from the App Store earlier today
Apple have just pulled Afghanistan ’11 from the app store because its got “people from a specific government or other real entity as the enemies”. You mean like every realistic game ever…. and people wonder why we don’t do iOS anymore. https://t.co/LQjUPUkWWr pic.twitter.com/m4YRNQXyoL
— Iain McNeil (@Iain_Slitherine) December 5, 2018
It’s the same story as 2015, when Ultimate General: Gettysburg was yanked from the App Store for having the audacity to be a game about the Civil War and feature Confederate flags.
It’s tiring asking/hoping for Apple to change this, so instead of wasting your energy on that, go play these games somewhere else. Afghanistan ‘11, for example, is better on PC anyway.
Comments
9 responses to “Apple Pulls Strategy Game Because It Features The Taliban”
Deep stupidity at play
So, uh, how does Civilization VI get around this?
never mind Civ, how does freaking CoD and MoH and many many other games that feature russians and iraqis and germans get around this
Hold up, do they use specific governments or entities though?
It’s always fictional figures in a real government I thought.
(Except for WWII games I guess)
CoD has most definately used proper governments in the Black Op series and the Medal of Honor 2009 also had the taliban in it, Even Arma 3 which has NATO and CSAT, CSAT is main run by China in the East and Iran in the Mediterrainian
By proper government I mean have they use an actual sitting US government in the game or is it a fictional government.
And I know PC and console games aren’t bothered all that much, but isn’t this for Apple?
Better relationship with Apple, and higher income for Apple if they accept the games?
Can’t they just call them Tallibums or Tallyboogers to get around it that way?
Why should they have to.
Makes total sense from their perspective.
Seems childish for the dev to not engage with them directly and sort out a diplomatic solution instead jumping to combative ranting on twitter..