Papers, Please flagged for Pornography by Apple

Tomorrow, the critically acclaimed indie game Papers, Please—a game so different, intriguing, and downright bleak that people are still talking about it a year later—will be released for the iPad and other mobile devices, meaning you can crush dreams and meditate on the futility of hope in a convenient portable fashion. But while that’s nice, it’s not really news: no, what’s ‘news’ is that the game’s creator, Lucas Pope, revealed that the game’s iPad release was troubled by a strange complaint by Apple: apparently, they considered the game “pornographic”.

See, the whole gameplay of Papers, Please is to analyze the paperwork of immigrants and decide if they are truthful and worthy of entry into the country. One of your tools to do this was a full-body scanner, which could look at immigrants in the nude in a wholly un-erotic way. However, the option to do as much was apparently all Apple needed to stomp down the banhammer, and thus the mobile version of the game has had the full-body nude scan removed.

Specifically, the reason why Apple considers this “pornography” is because it comes from a game, rather than a book or a song. In it’s guidelines, Apple states the following;

“If you want to criticize a religion, write a book. If you want to describe sex, write a book or song, or create a medical App. It can get complicated, but we have decided to not allow certain kinds of content in the App Store.”

Games simply aren’t allowed to have that kind of content, apparently. It ultimately won’t affect the game in any meaningful way—it’s a pretty small feature that just added a touch of authenticity to proceedings—but it’s still pretty disappointing Apple still feels that way.  Maybe some day they'll change their tune, but I somehow doubt it'll be tomorrow.

Edit: So... uh... Lucas Pope just tweeted that Apple has requested he re-submit Papers, Please with the nudity option included, stating that it was a misunderstanding and admitting there was nothing pornographic about the game.  I'll just... see myself out.