While it seems like the news cycle these days moves so fast it’s hard to keep up with what happened yesterday, let’s roll the clocks back to mid-2015 when one of the primary controversies in the US was removing as many Confederate flags and monuments as possible from public display. For some absolutely unbelievable reason, Apple joined in and removed everything from the App Store that featured a Confederate flag, including but not limited to most, if not all games involving the Civil War. This turned into such a massive story that it not only escaped gaming news circles, but escalated its way up to the mainstream media. This resulted in Apple eventually walking back those policies.
The developer who got burnt the hardest by this seemed to be Slitherine, whose catalog on the App Store consists of incredibly hardcore, and incredibly historically accurate strategy games. To make these games so historically accurate, the battles played out inside of them take place in real world scenarios. These games are very tastefully done, and often serve as fabulous educational experiences as you replay various battles from history and clearly see how miraculous a victory was or how inevitable a defeat may have been.
Well, it would seem that Apple is at it again, removing Slitherine’s Afghanistan 11 ($19.99) from the App Store due to “People from a specific government or other real entity as the enemies." This is a particularly absurd removal because...