
Apple rejects Tank Battle 1942 for depicting Germans and Russians as "enemies" - Jare
http://www.pockettactics.com/news/ios-news/apple-rejects-tank-battle-1942-depicting-germans-russians-enemies/
======
protomyth
This is so dumb it is "get someone fired" dumb. This is going to hit the media
as political correctness run amok. I can just hear "Is Apple going to ban
history books, too?". Sure, its ok for a half-naked women with a sword to
slice up orks, but don't you dare show war-game with actual sides. Is Axis &
Allies going to be banned?

~~~
SilasX
I think the decision is absurd too, but how does this generalize to history
books? They don't portray one group as "the enemy" and good practice is to
actively avoid that.

~~~
sspiff
I think they do, although that's probably fine. Germany was "the enemy" of the
Soviet Union, as was Japan. France was "the enemy" of pretty much everyone
else in the Napoleonic wars. There's nothing wrong with labeling someone as
"the enemy" of someone else, as long as you don't include a value judgement.

I doubt this game labels "the vile Germans" as "the enemy of the noble
Soviets".

------
zefhous
Isn't the word "solely" the key here?

> 15.3 “Enemies” within the context of a game cannot solely target a specific
> race, culture, a real government or corporation, or any other real entity.

If you could play as both sides it seems like they would allow it. While this
rejection seems irrational, I don't think the point is that Germans and
Russians are targeted, but that they are depicted as the only enemy.

Every conflict has at least two sides, and it's unthinkable that any game
doesn't offend a group of people. However, it seems more reasonable that they
should require "fairness" in the sense that both sides should be playable.
This takes a game from having a perceived ideological stance to being more
neutral, and I think that's the whole point here.

~~~
ForHackernews
Russia and Germany are two separate nations. Nations that were on opposite
sides of WWII, no less. I don't see how the game "solely" targets one specific
group.

~~~
arethuza
"Nations that were on opposite sides of WWII"

Not all of WW2 - they jointly invaded Poland:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact)

It was after the Soviet invasion of Poland that the infamous Katyn Massacre
occurred:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre)

Which included 7000 prisoners executed by a single man:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Blokhin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Blokhin)

~~~
pessimizer
If the Russians hadn't been on the opposite side against the Germans, we'd be
speaking German now.

~~~
rdl
I wonder how non-Stalin or non-Communist Russia would have done vs. the
Germans. Purging military leadership wasn't helpful, but industrial production
was.

------
joakleaf
Apple sells these products (and takes a 30% cut), so they have some
responsibility for what they are selling. They don't want to offend anyone, so
they made a list of rules. Their review team interprets rules literally.

We may shake our heads when it comes to WW2, but it is really a grey area.

What if the game was depicting a war between present day religious or
political groups? What if it was a game between heterosexuals and homosexuals?
What about a racist theme?Would that be OK?

Certainly, some people would be offended. So where do you draw the line if you
don't want to offend anyone with the products you sell?

~~~
kanja
My Great-aunt didn't make it out of the camps. WW2 isn't a gray area by any
honest interpretation.

~~~
melling
The Russians weren't the enemy in WW2. In fact, their contribution greatly
affected the outcome of the war.

Axis and Allies are good names if someone is being historically accurate.

~~~
stephenhuey
They started out as enemies of the Allies, then they became enemies of the
Axis powers when they changed their allegiance. And when they were pretending
to be friends of the Polish people under Nazi rule, they intentionally failed
to show up as promised to help out with the Warsaw uprising so that the Polish
uprising leaders would die and not get in the way when they instituted
communism in Poland (I saw the new "Warsaw Rising Museum" this past summer).
Brings to mind the phrase "with friends like these, who needs enemies?" But to
set clearly set the record straight, the Russians were indeed the enemy at
some point no matter which side you were on.

~~~
smm2000
Russia definitely did not promise to help out with Warsaw uprising and
actively discouraged it. Uprising was a coup by Polish leaders to liberate
Warsaw before Russian army arrives to be in a better negotiating position
after the end of war. Soviet Union was under no obligation to help anti-soviet
elements to fight Germans - enemy of my enemy is my friend is true only up to
the point.

~~~
stephenhuey
I don't know that you can back up your first sentence. I'm pretty sure the
museum in Warsaw claims that they did plan to work together. Also, the museum
shows part of a TV show from after the war which served as Soviet propaganda.
The TV show rewrote history to say the Soviets fought alongside them. My
Polish friend is in his mid-30s like me and explained how they were still
showing this old TV program when he was a child in the 80s. Now he knows it
was a lie.

------
tomasien
If it's going to be a policy, it should be a strict policy. This is the kind
of thing where a "there's no room for interpretation" stance is probably
appropriate - this is tricky, tricky territory, and even though a game
simulating a real war will always have real entities as the enemy, I can
respect a policy that is implemented to the letter in order to avoid the sort
of really horrible games that could enter the App Store without it.

I'd prefer Apple to be entirely open and then only remove apps once flagged
and reviewed, but if they're going to be the way they are, I prefer them to be
consistent.

------
brudgers
In Faulknerian terms:

    
    
        The past is never dead. It did not even happen.
    

For students of Santayana:

    
    
        If there is no past, we cannot be doomed to repeat it.
    

The technical term for sarcastic Orwellians:

    
    
        Drilling memory holes.

------
itsdrewmiller
First they came for the mkv decoding video apps, and I said nothing. Then they
came for the WWII simulation games, and I said nothing. Then they came for the
alternative browsers, so I switched to Android.

------
platz
This article explains apple's views on the difference between books, movies,
and games.

Basically they don't trust games to handle political subjects well.

[http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/15/apple-want-to-criticize-
re...](http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/15/apple-want-to-criticize-religion-
write-a-book-dont-make-a-game/)

------
protomyth
Here's my big problem. Why do books, movies, and television not have to face
this kind of crap? Why don't game developers get the same privileges as other
media? Because its interactive? That's a load of crap. Because its immersive?
Other media should be insulted by that assertion.

If you're a developer and you don't think your fellow developers should get
the same protections as other media, then why? How does Apple sell "Patton" or
"Midway" and not this?

~~~
Tloewald
You think books, movies, and television don't face this kind of crap? Publish
a book that says the wrong things about the wrong people and you are toast
(especially in countries where, for example, truth is not a defense, such as
Britain and Australia). Movies will do all kinds of things (notably
eliminating sex scenes, especially where women are enjoying themselves) to get
more permissive ratings from the MPAA. And television is completely nutty (the
writers of _Hill Street Blues_ invented an entire lexicon of curses and
epithets in order to have police have vaguely plausible dialog that could get
past network censors).

~~~
protomyth
Does Apple subject each television show, movie, and book to a "contains
content or features that include people from a specific race, culture,
government, corporation, or other real entity as the enemies in the context of
the game, which is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines"
rule?

~~~
Tloewald
Well, I can't comment on what Apple allows or does not allow in terms of TV
shows and movies, although it's pretty clear that -- for example -- Apple does
not allow porn. The fact is that the deluge of Apps is not duplicated anywhere
else -- I read somewhere that a new Flappy Bird clone is released every 24s --
I don't think there are as many TV shows to contend with.

The point is that everyone publishing stuff in a store probably has to deal
with censorship etc. at some point. Nintendo famously forced LucasArts to
remove a puzzle from a game because the solution involved sticking a hamster
in a microwave.

~~~
protomyth
So, no, they do not subject anything else to a similar requirement. Volume
doesn't give them a pass. The thought process that software developers are
less protected than authors is an insulting.

"No Porn" is a requirement they impose on ALL media, so it fair and respectful
of the work done by software developers. The thinking that an Harlequin
romance novel is somehow more artistic and worthy of protection than something
like "Last of Us" is bogus.

~~~
Tloewald
Basically TV shows, etc., are regulated externally, so Apple doesn't need to
bother as much. Games are open season, and someone has to police standards. I
think you're blaming Apple for trying to manage a difficult situation and
sometimes making mistakes (which everyone who does similar things also does --
again, see MPAA ratings and ESRB ratings for mainstream games)

------
kunai
We never cared about the App Store acceptance guidelines before, because most
apps got accepted anyway. Still, there's an intrinsic risk that you take when
you push a program to the store, in that YOU do not have control over how your
app turns out. Apple has final authority on any changes, and it's really a
restrictive environment to be in.

It didn't matter then, but with billions of applications now in the
marketplace, the drawbacks of having a fully closed environment for
applications are becoming painfully obvious.
[http://www.paulgraham.com/apple.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/apple.html)

~~~
happyscrappy
He said that five years ago, has their bottom line suffered? Do developers now
start with an Android app and then go to iOS? This current "outrage", which
will almost certainly be overturned on appeal, was caused by a single reviewer
and the fact that Apple's guidelines are intentionally vague leaving them wide
latitude to control the App Store for brand protection.

~~~
mikeash
Just because their strengths outweigh this weakness doesn't make it not a
weakness. Has their bottom line suffered? I would wager yes. Just because
they're still dominant doesn't mean this hasn't hurt them.

This "outrage" was _not_ caused by a single reviewer. It was caused by the
capricious and unwieldy app review system that Apple instituted years. IT was
caused by the fact that a single reviewer can fuck things up publicly for the
entire company. It is a problem of _process_ , not of an individual.

------
peelman-
Just a friendly reminder: Apple has hundreds of reviewers, and turn over is
undoubtedly high. The reviews are highly subjective with the Guidelines being
what they are and worded how they are, you're going to have different
interpretations among the pool of reviewers. Asking for consistency out of
that system is insane. That's why there's an appeal process. Taking to the
internets to bitch about it and inciting the masses makes headlines, but is
just bad business.

~~~
untog
You're giving Apple a free pass.

Reviewers should have sufficient training to be able to make sensible calls
without having to go through an appeals process.

------
scrumper
I immediately thought of Bulge[1], a great WW2 strategy game depicting the
eponymous battle. I thought it would support the Tank Battle developer's
complaint, but actually it doesn't: the combatants are 'Axis' and 'Allies' \-
no mention of countries.

[1] [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/battle-of-the-
bulge/id521833...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/battle-of-the-
bulge/id521833787?mt=8)

------
higherpurpose
And there you go, more arbitrary decisions that should have no place in an
"app store". That's why a platform _always_ needs to allow at the very least
side-loading of apps, even if it makes it difficult enough for "normal users"
to do that, for security reasons. For situations like these when the vendor
starts banning apps for their own bogus reasons.

~~~
wahnfrieden
Side loading doesn't help you sell your app if the official store is still the
only one most users access.

------
joakleaf
What is more strange, is that Wolfenstein 3D was allowed on the App Store
then…

[https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/wolfenstein-3d-classic-
plati...](https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/wolfenstein-3d-classic-
platinum/id309470478?mt=8)

------
bambax
> _As I’ve said before, the problem here isn’t the guidelines themselves: hate
> speech has no place on the App Store._

If you agree with policing hate speech, you have to accept the consequences.

Of course the 1st amendment currently only limits the actions of the US Govt.
and corporations are free to ignore it. But this situation can't last.

In a world where every expression of speech utilizes a medium provided by a
private corporation, free speech needs to be enforced at the corporate level.

Much like a corporation isn't free to discriminate against a person on the
basis of race or religion for hiring purposes, it shouldn't be able to refuse
to publish something because it finds the content objectionable.

~~~
codelap
This is ridiculous, you want to force my company to host your hate speech?
Bullshit, you're now removing my rights, to enable your own. It's the
internet, build your own platform and say whatever you want.

~~~
bambax
> _you want to force my company to host your hate speech?_

Yes I do! If you don't want to host hate speech, don't go into the hosting
business. Sell groceries or something.

~~~
codelap
Now you want to limit what I can do for business because you want to be
ignorant online. That is beyond arrogant.

~~~
wtbob
It's the same logic behind forcing private businesses to ban smoking on their
premises, and the same logic behind forcing photographers, bakers and florists
to provide artistic services to celebrations they abhor: 'if you don't want to
do X for everyone, according to the rules and regulations we have promulgated,
then don't do X!'

The sad thing is, most folks don't _want_ liberty for others.

~~~
codelap
I certainly don't want unchecked liberty for others, or myself. I want
intelligent, compassionate, and humane liberty, meaning that you can do
whatever you want as long as you're not hurting someone else.

Say I take the grocery example from above. And I have unbridled liberty, and I
now don't allow any black people to shop there because in the original texts
of Mormon, the lord cursed Cains seed, and the black skin curse was to
identify the cursed. Now if there are 30 grocery stores in town, who cares.
But say I'm in a small town, and there are only two, and we're both Pre-1978
Mormon believers. Now black people in the town can only eat at the Chick fil
a. Well, Chick fil a decides to also have this policy, and now there is no
place for the black populace to eat. The only option to the black people is to
open their own store, except no one will sell them the food, and no one will
sell them the land, and no one will sell them... anything. I effectively own
the black populous because I can get them to work for food. Oh, and it's not
racism, it's religion.

I don't care what ideology you have, it must not suppress human rights.

------
quux
Didn't/doesn't Nintendo have similar restrictions? I don't think this is such
an unreasonable reason to reject an app.

~~~
mpyne
There have been quite a few Call of Duty and Medal of Honor games on Nintendo
systems where you have to fight German or Japanese enemies.

~~~
bradyd
Interestingly, Call of Duty is available in the Mac App Store.

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/call-of-
duty/id416666678?mt=...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/call-of-
duty/id416666678?mt=12)

------
glhaynes
_UPDATE (Friday 14 March): Maybe they’re reading Pocket Tactics in Cupertino?
Andrew Mulholland just wrote in to say that Apple re-reviewed the game and
have reversed their decision without Hunted Cow Studios having to make any
changes. Common sense prevails. Tank Battle: East Front 1942 will be on the
App Store tonight at midnight._

------
joesmo
It's amazing how people accept censorship when it comes from Apple or other
corporations (as evidenced by the sales and usage of iPhones and similar
technology) yet complain when the government does it. What's even harder to
accept is the extent of damage that a corporation like Apple does in this
case. Through arbitrary censorship, they're essentially eliminating other
businesses' ability to exist. They're essentially saying, "develop at your own
risk." A company who has poured a ton of money and development resources into
a project that falls within guidelines can no longer publish their product
because of the invisible guidelines at Apple and their rigidity. One would
think they would at least have an appeals process to deal with all the
mistakes.

EDIT: With arbitrary approval like this, what is the incentive for a business
to take such a _huge_ risk?

~~~
joakleaf
It isn't really censorship in a strict big-controlling-bigbrother-government
sense.

If a government is censoring, they block completely 100%. You will not be able
to freely say what you want.

Here, you can definitely say and do what you want (within the law) -- Just not
on an iPhone.

If you own a website with a forum on it, and you don't allow certain links to
dubious content in the comments, that isn't really censorship either, is it?

~~~
joesmo
"censorship: the practice of officially examining books, movies, etc., and
suppressing unacceptable parts." \--
[https://www.google.com/search?q=censorship+definition&oq=cen...](https://www.google.com/search?q=censorship+definition&oq=censor)

I'd say this is definitely censorship. It's censorship chosen by those who
choose to purchase an iPhone. It negatively affects those who have an iPhone
and especially those developing for the iPhone. Yes, you can make an argument
that one doesn't have to own or develop for the iPhone, but for the developer,
that's over 40% (I believe) of the mobile phone market in the US. That's a
huge customer base to ignore simply because it's risky to develop iPhone apps
due to Apple's censorship.

Also, iPhone apps are generally useless outside of the app store. Sure,
someone with enough technical know-how can install them, but for all intents
and purposes, they have no value if they're being censored. That is very
different from moderating a website. There are billions of websites and only
one app store.

------
MBCook
Honestly, it really is right there in the guidelines. I understand many people
don't agree with them (they do seem overly restrictive), but this shouldn't
have been a surprise.

It doesn't make sense to me when developers make apps that are clearly against
the app store guidelines and then complain that they get rejected.

~~~
smackfu
>apps that are clearly against the app store guidelines

The absurdity is that all they need to do is change "Germans" to "World War 2
Enemy #1" and it passes the guideline.

~~~
MBCook
I totally agree. Given the historical context (and assuming it's reasonably in
line with history) I think it should be allowed.

I understand why Apple wouldn't want to sell "Stomp the Muslim" or "Nuke
France" on their store, but some of the things Apple is preventing may be good
social commentary. People were talking about Papers Please yesterday, would
that be allowed? There have been a few social justice indie-games over the
last few years, I doubt many of them would have been allowed.

------
trevoragilbert
This is the kind of thing that gets blown out of proportion. App reviewers are
pushed to review as many as possible in a short window of time, and then make
a small mistake like this. Not that big of a deal.

------
noblethrasher
The one screenshot refers to “Soviets”, but the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany
are not extant entities.

------
bluedino
Is Rocky IV available on iTunes?

~~~
valarauca1
"Rocky IV depicts Oceania and Eurasia as enemies despite the two never
engaging in an armed conflict. Due to historical in accuracies Itunes
Minitruth subsection histosec has re-edited Rocky IV because Oceania and
EastAsia have always been at war. Oceania and Eastasia have always been at
war."

~~~
Patrick_Devine
Wasn't Rocky IV released in 1985? A year too late!

------
desireco42
This is new history rewriting present in EU, Germans don't want to be the bad
guys anymore, so they ask that formulations from WW I celebrations change.
They want us to forget their role in two world wars and would like to reframe
those as anything but what it was.

~~~
rwissmann
I am curious where you get your information from. Got any source demonstrating
the 'the Germans' \- which I assume is meant to describe either the majority
opinion or the official government stance - want to rewrite history regarding
WWII? Or asking for anyone to 'forget their role' in it?

Disclaimer: I am a German living in the UK.

~~~
desireco42
Yes, there is big push to redefine everything WW I and II, Merkel officially
asked English to tone down celebrations of WW I and those toning down went so
much that Russians decided not to participate in charade altogether which was
to happen in France and will organize remembrance events on their own. There
are attempts to pin start of WW I on Serbs, like they could start the war. So
you see where I am going.

So, if it helps, I respect and frankly love german culture and philosophers
especially, but honestly since that WW I, germans developed this cycle of
going up, being destructive, being destroyed. I see that happening again.

~~~
rwissmann
Apologies for the late reply. Do you have a source for that request of
Merkel's?

You specifically mentioned "forget their role in two world wars". That is not
the same as stating the - historically accurate notion - that Germany was not
the sole party responsible for WWI. A major instigator, possibly the most
important, but my no means the only one.

No mainstream politician in Germany denies German responsibility for WWII.

~~~
desireco42
It's ok, HN doesn't provide notifications, a quick google turned out this
link, not the most respectable source I will admit, but I remember it being
fairly well reported at the time.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2396564/German-
embas...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2396564/German-embassy-
calls-Britons-celebrate-First-World-War-victory.html)

------
tanglesome
Un-freaking-believable.

