Apple's Tim Cook has recently spoke against displaying the Confederate flag, so I suppose this development was to be expected. However, censoring historical games (if that is indeed the reason why the game's have been pulled) is always very tricky because those games don't glorify or promote a cause but, rather, represent historical events using the symbols and insignia of the period. However, I can also see the political and social pressure mounting at the moment, which makes pulling the games the "safest" action for Apple. What do you think? If Apple has indeed pulled the games for displaying the Confederate flag, is Apple's action justified, or was there another way to eradicate racism and remove the symbols and words that feed it, as Tim Cook put it?
Update: It's looking like Apple has pulled everything from the App Store that features a Confederate flag, regardless of context. The reasoning Apple is sending developers is "...because it includes images of the confederate flag used in offensive and mean-spirited ways." We just spoke with Andrew from HexWar Games, who have released many historical strategy games. He insists, "We're in no way sympathetic to the use of the flag in an offensive way, we used it purely because historically that was the flag that was used at the time."
HexWar Games plans on attempting to re-submit their games using the lesser-known 1861 version of the Confederate flag. But, who knows if that will even be approved. No one is sure yet if Apple is banning all mention of the Confederacy, or just the specific image of the flag which has since become such a hot button issue in the USA.
Update 2: We just received a statement from Maxim Zasov of Game Labs, the developers of Ultimate General: Gettysburg. It is as follows:
We accept Apple's decision and understand that this is a sensitive issue for the American Nation. We wanted our game to be the most accurate, historical, playable reference of the Battle of Gettysburg. All historical commanders, unit composition and weaponry, key geographical locations to the smallest streams or farms are recreated in our game's battlefield.
We receive a lot of letters of gratitude from American teachers who use our game in history curriculum to let kids experience one of the most important battles in American history from the Commander's perspective.
Spielberg’s "Schindler's List" did not try to amend his movie to look more comfortable. The historical "Gettysburg" movie (1993) is still on iTunes. We believe that all historical art forms: books, movies, or games such as ours, help to learn and understand history, depicting events as they were. True stories are more important to us than money.
Therefore we are not going to amend the game's content and Ultimate General: Gettysburg will no longer be available on AppStore. We really hope that Apple’s decision will achieve the desired results. We can’t change history, but we can change the future.
http://toucharcade.com/2015/06/25/apple-removes-confederate-flag/-------------------------------------------------
Apple is not alone doing this. We live in a strange world right now.
