Auroch Digital has announced that they will have to change the game Endgame: Syria in order to bring it to the iOS App Store. An App Store guideline preventing an app from targeting “a specific race, culture, a real government or corporation, or any other real entity” means that some of the meaning and context will have to be removed from the game, already available on Android.
“We had hoped that Apple would be more nuanced in how they applied this rule but we got a bit worried when it had been in submission for around two weeks without a decision,” said game designer Tomas Rawlings. “We then figured that because of the controversy of using the gaming medium to cover an ongoing war meant passing the game had become an issue for them.”
“Our aim is to use games as a format to bring news to a new audience and submission processes such as this do make it a lot harder for us,” Rawlings added. “I get that Apple want to make sure really offensive titles don’t pass into their store, but ours is far from that.”
