Apple rejects 'Endgame: Syria' from App store, a title based on the Syrian conflict

Apple rarely rejects games on App Store for thematic reasons, but today it has rejected the sale of 'Endgame', a title that focuses on the Syrian conflict.

GI.Biz reports that Endgame: Syria was developed by Auroch Digital in just two weeks, and was rejected for crossing Apple's submission guidelines which forbid titles that, "solely target a specific race, culture, a real government or corporation or any other real entity".

Responding to the decision, designer Tomas Rawlings said, "This decision is a shame really as it makes it hard to talk about the real world. 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 - 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. I get that Apple want to make sure really offensive titles don't pass into their store, but ours is far from that.

"In fact the response to the game has been broadly positive with much of the mainstream media picking up on the story. We'll be making changes to the game and re-submitting it but it does mean we'll have to strip some of the meaning and context from it to pass Apple's submission process and that is not ideal."

The studio is resubmitting the title to Apple in the hopes of a second approval, although the game is also available on Android.

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