Apple, Arbiters Of Art, Say Game About Surviving The Gaza Strip Isn't A Game, Even Though It Is

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the art-thou-kidding? dept

Search for stories about Apple’s App Store in the Techdirt archives and you will quickly notice a theme. That theme is that Apple routinely appoints itself as the arbiter of artistic quality and morality when it comes to content within the app store, particularly gaming content, and that its application of these standards swings like some kind of absurd pendulum. Ban a game over here for telling a bible story that includes violence against children, but allow the actual bible to be sold as well. React to the South Carolina massacre by pulling down games about the Civil War because they include images of the Confederate flag. Reject a wargaming simulation, then approve it, and nobody knows how the company might decide to react tomorrow. You often hear that stability breeds a good ground for business, whereas Apple runs its App Store like some kind of experiment in chaos.

And in order to apply its standards in a way that apparently makes the folks at Apple feel all warm and fuzzy inside, it occasionally has to truly lower its explanations to absurd levels of outright lying. For instance, Apple recently disallowed a game about surviving on the Gaza Strip in its store, claiming it wasn’t a game at all, but a news publication, even though the briefest review of the app reveals that it’s obviously a game.

A game about the Palestine/Israel conflict, Liyla and The Shadows of War, has proved too political for Apple. The technology giant ordered the developer, Rasheed Abueideh, to remove Liyla from the games section of its iTunes app store, claiming it isn’t a game and should sit in the news section.

The real question is, is Liyla and The Shadows of War a game? I played it last night, as Liyla is available from Google Play. It’s a short platformer with a powerful message and stunning graphics.

The writer goes on from there to describe the plot, the inclusion of reactions to real life events, the graphical elements of the game, and the, well, gameplay. Because it’s a game. You have to play to get either a win or lose scenario, there are choices to be made, puzzles to be solved, and stages to complete. It’s a platformer, like Mario Bros..

So, why the ban and the lies to support it? Well, one can understand that the Middle East conflict and the ongoing crisis between the Palestinians and the Israelis is among the most touchy of subjects. For a company that wants to keep its brand and its App Store squeaky clean, at least in its own mind, one can imagine that this kind of thing is something Apple wouldn’t want to touch. But, misguided as this already is, it becomes all the more so when it can’t even bother to stay consistent on the matter. The App Store has available for purchase, for instance, Israeli Heroes, which appears to be an Angry Birds clone in which you lob missiles at bombs that reside under a crescent moon and oh my god, I think I’m about to have an embolism, because come on.

As always, in the midst of this nonsense, the game is available for Android devices, because that garden has no wall around it.

For once, the phrase ‘relax, it’s just a game’ seems apt. Apple take note. Liyla and The Shadows of War is available for Android on Google Play – it’s free, it’s short and it’s definitely a game worth playing.

We’ve said it before, but we’ll say it again: it’d be best if Apple would get out of the art critique business. They’re not very good at it.

Filed Under: app store, censorship, games, gaza strip, itunes, video games, walled garden
Companies: apple