VentureBeat » Endgame: Syria

Endgame: Syria back on iOS App Store: Has new name, no real places

Jeffrey Grubb — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:32:54 +0000

In January, GamesBeat reported that Apple blocked a game called Endgame: Syria from its iOS App Store. That strategy title explores the nation’s civil war and aims to inform gamers about the many possible outcomes of the conflict. Apple refused the game based on the sensitive nature of the content.

Today, developer Tomas Rawlings, who produced the game as part of his Game The News series, revealed that the title is finally available on the App Store under a new name. Rawlings changed the game to Endgame: Eurasia and wiped all other references to Syria and its war.

We reached out to Rawlings to see how he feels about ripping out the overt political statement of his game.

“[I'm] very disappointed,” Rawlings told GamesBeat. “It’s a long, drawn-out process that costs time and money to go though, [Apple's process] is a major hindrance to our art as game creators.”

Meanwhile, Android and PC users can still get the original version of Endgame: Syria.

Apple hasn’t lightened up on its stance against games that tackle important subjects. Earlier today, the technology giant removed a game called Sweatshop HD from the App Store.

“I heard about Sweatshop, [that's] a real shame,” said Rawlings. “It’s a good game that makes a really important point, and it should be available to gamers to judge for themselves.”

Filed under: Games

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Apple: ‘Want to criticize religion? Write a book’ — don’t make a game

Jeffrey Grubb — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 16:40:56 +0000

Apple doesn’t believe video games can tackle important subjects.

At least, that’s how the submission guidelines for developers on the App Store make it sound. If you haven’t read the document before, it’s actually very interesting. The whole thing comes across in very conversational language, not the typical lawyer-speak that often permeates these kinds of policy statements, which is why many people believe that Steve Jobs dictated it himself.

One section of the guidelines resonated with me as a gamer:

We view apps different than books or songs, which we do not curate. If you want to criticize a religion, write a book. If you want to describe sex, write a book or a 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.

Apple isn’t the only company that “views apps differently than books or songs,” but it is still strange for a company to state it so bluntly. Apparently, Apple doesn’t think games are capable of the same kind of social criticism as books and songs — but why?

“I think [Apple has] the wrong attitude about games, but ultimately [this] is game developers’ fault, not Apple’s,” Braid developer Jonathan Blow told GamesBeat. “Apple is treating games as shallow commercial entertainment experiences because they have been taught by game developers that that is what games are.”

Blow suggests that Apple doesn’t think games are capable of adding to public discourse on important social issues because most developers don’t even think games can do that.

“If we had built a world where games routinely work with serious issues in ways that people care about, Apple would not be able to take this stance because it would not make any sense,” said Blow.

It’s unfortunate because Apple has now established a self-fulfilling prophecy. Games don’t criticize religion, war, and politics very well, so Apple bans games that try to do that. But that means games that do criticize these topics in a thoughtful way will never reach a wide enough audience to prove it to Apple.

That’s what happened to Endgame: Syria.

Developer Auroch Digital developed a strategy game based on the real civil war in the Middle-Eastern nation, but Apple rejected its submission to the App Store.

Auroch built the title in two weeks to help people understand the many possible outcomes of the conflict. Gamers can use a medium they’re familiar with to explore and learn about a serious topic online and on the Google Play market.

“I feel that the form of media should be irrelevant, and it’s the content that counts,” Endgame: Syria lead designer Tomas Rawlings told GamesBeat. “Games, films, apps, comics, music, and books should all be held to the same standard. To suggest that there is an invisible line that says it’s OK to say something in a book but not in a game? That feels wrong to me.”

Apple rejected the game based on a portion of its guidelines that prohibits games that “solely target a specific race, culture, a real government or corporation, or any other real entity.”

But this is Apple’s party

“I’m not at all surprised by Apple’s policy, and I just take it for what it is,” Writer Rumble developer Gian Cruz told GamesBeat. “There are obviously multiple shades of gray when it comes to what’s appropriate and what’s not, but at the end of the day, it’s their storefront, and they are the ones who are allowed to make that call. I do not have an absolute right to be in the App Store just because I have something to say in my game or app. There are still other avenues and storefronts I could pursue to express my ideas.”

Game designer Edmund McMillen, who released The Binding of Isaac based on the biblical story of the same name, agrees with Cruz.

“I think [Apple] just chose a really horrible way to say that they don’t want to publish apps that will upset people,” McMillen told GamesBeat. “The way it is written is obviously bad and upsetting in many ways because on a surface level, most will view them as saying a video game can’t express what a song or book can and [that they] shouldn’t. But I really just think it’s a misguided way of saying [not to] submit games that are controversial and might upset people.”

That’s true. Apple’s guidelines basically say the same thing:

We will reject apps for any content or behavior that we believe is over the line. What line, you ask? Well, as a Supreme Court Justice once said, “I’ll know it when I see it.” And we think that you will also know it when you cross it.

But that doesn’t nullify the double standard. Apple doesn’t care if a book or song on its platform is controversial or upsets people. In fact, if Apple believes that books are better at criticizing religion, then wouldn’t they also be more capable of offending users of Apple products?

Maybe the truth is that Apple knows that people associate products from the App Store with Apple more than they associate a book or a song they purchase using their iPad.

We requested a comment from Apple, but it did not respond.

Regardless of any impediments, it’s still up to developers to leverage their medium to do something important if they so choose. Apple thinks gaming is so trivial and incompetent that it has no issues with treating games like a second-class form of art.

That shouldn’t stop developers from trying to creatively circumvent Apple’s ban.

“Apple may be badgered enough to change their policy someday, or they may not,” said Blow. “But that doesn’t matter very much because really it is just a reflection of the general cultural idea we have about what games are. The only way that idea will change is if a lot of developers make a lot of serious, deep, honest, touching, and intrepid games for a long time. I don’t know if that will ever happen. How many games can you think of to which you can seriously apply these adjectives? Certainly to none of the top-selling games on the App Store, and certainly to none of those big free-to-play games that are raking in all the cash.”

Many of those games are more than fine. They have their place, but something like Endgame: Syria has the potential to influence the way people view a real-world conflict.

Most of us believe that. Let’s hope that someday games can convince Apple as well.

Filed under: Games, Mobile

Apple rejects game that explores the ongoing Syrian civil war

Jeffrey Grubb — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 18:48:03 +0000

Video games can’t explore an ongoing, real war — at least on an Apple device.

The consumer-electronics giant rejected Endgame: Syria, a game based on the conflict in that Middle Eastern country. Apple denied the game based on its App Store policy which forbids products from “solely target a specific race, culture, a real government or corporation, or any other real entity.” The Syrian conflict is a civil war involving armed rebels fighting against the Syrian government.

“This decision is a shame, really, as it makes it hard to talk about the real world,” said Endgame: Syria designer Tomas Rawlings. “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.”

Endgame: Syria is a light strategy game that explores how the numerous potential outcomes of Syrian civil war will affect the many interested parties. It’s part of GameTheNews initiative, a project by developer Auroch Digital that uses games to bring understanding to current events.

“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 wants 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 resubmitting 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.”

As games sit in the crossfire of a national debate on violence, it’s sad that a one has to cut out its meaning and context in order to gain access to a huge audience.

Endgame: Syria is HTML5, and anyone can play it on PC and even on iOS devices using a browser, if you’re interesting in seeing what Apple thinks shouldn’t be part of its ecosystem. You can find the game here.

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat weekly roundup: GLaDOS in Pacific Rim, more Black Ops II zombies, and Portal on a calculator

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 16:46:24 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, the voice of GLaDOS from the Portal series shows up in the trailer for the movie Pacific Rim, Disney buys South Korean game developer Studio Ex, and Call of Duty: Black Ops II gets more zombies, now on the Nuketown map.

You’ll also find reviews for Uncharted: Fight for Fortune and Guardians of Middle-Earth.

News:

Mobile News:

Previews:

Interviews:

Reviews:

Pieces of flair:

Filed under: Games

Endgame: Syria — a game that explores the nation’s civil war

Jeffrey Grubb — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 22:41:21 +0000

Scud missiles and chemical warfare are a real threat that face the people of Syria as its government clashes with rebels who wish to oust the ruling party.

That’s not great subject material for a video games — or is it?

Endgame: Syria is a new game from developer Auroch Digital that explores the civil war. It’s a free game available online, on iOS, or on Android. It’s a simple game with lots of menus and text, and it explores the military and political nature of this conflict by showing how in-game actions effect both of those fronts.

It’s is part of the Game The News Project, which asks developers to explore topical subjects using games. In order to do this, the development time on Endgame: Syria was only two weeks.

“We wanted the events and actions in the game to mirror the real situation,” said Endgame: Syria designer Tomas Rawlings. “So while creating this experience, we were also continually looking at the news and adding or removing components to keep the content current.”

The simulation puts players in the role of leading the rebels against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Players must balance fighting the war with maintaining political support.

When designing Endgame: Syria, Rawlings researched the real war and discovered that several parties — many outside the country — stand to win or lose depending on how the sides choose to resolve the conflict.

That got him thinking about using the game as a way to map the different paths this war could take and how that would play out for the people of Syria, the United Nations, Iran, China, Russia, and others.

“As a game developer, I’m interested in this situation and the medium that’s natural for me to explore it in is games,” said Rawlings in a presentation about Endgame: Syria. “And ‘game’ is just the term for the medium. If it’s more comfortable [for you] you can call it a simulation, an exploration, an interactive guide — [you can use] any of those terms that you are more comfortable with.”

We’ve recently seen another campaign that uses rapid game development to promote something: Dikembe Mutombo’s 4 1/2 Weeks to Save the World. That’s a game born out of an advertising promotion for Old Spice deodorants.

Each week, Old Spice’s advertising firm presents a folder of ideas and writing — often based on very current pop-culture references — to a development team led by Canabalt creator Adam Saltsman. They then spend a week turning those concepts into a game. It’s an amazing concept, but ultimately a silly one.

Game The News believes that the interactivity and malleability of games are an important way for people to learn about world events.

“We turned the war into an experience that people can follow along with and make decisions in,” said Rawlings. “And they have to understand the consequences of their decisions. And that’s really the key of how games are a good form to explore something.”

Filed under: Games