Apple Removes Games over Confederate Flag Usage

A few games have been pulled from the iOS App Store after the controversy over the Confederate Flag in the United States has soared to new heights.

Following the tragic shooting of nine people in Charleston, SC earlier this week, what started as a request for removal of the Confederate flag from South Carolina’s capitol building turned a this nation-wide movement to strip Confederacy symbols from all public places – including parks, buildings, license plates, shopping sites, retail stores, and now the App Store. 

What games have been removed?

So far there, are only a few games removed from the iOS App Store due to the Confederacy images used within the games. Included in this removal are:

Ultimate General: Gettysburg

Civil War: 1862

Civil War: 1863

Civil War: 1864

Maxim Zasof of Game Labs, the deveolpers behind Ultimate General: Gettysburg released a statement to TouchArcade expressing their sympathy to the removal as well as plans for the future.

“We accept Apple’s decision and understand that this is a sensitive issue for the American Nation. We wanted our game to be the most accurate, historical, playable reference of the Battle of Gettysburg. All historical commanders, unit composition and weaponry, key geographical locations to the smallest streams or farms are recreated in our game’s battlefield.

Spielberg’s Schindler’s List did not try to amend his movie to look more comfortable. The historical “Gettysburg” movie (1993) is still on iTunes. We believe that all historical art forms: books, movies, or games such as ours, help to learn and understand history, depicting events as they were. True stories are more important to us than money.

Therefore we are not going to amend the game’s content and Ultimate General: Gettysburg will no longer be available on AppStore. We really hope that Apple’s decision will achieve the desired results. We can’t change history, but we can change the future.“

The Confederate Flag in History

Although the Confederate flag represents a chunk of American history involving the Civil War,  its true meaning has always been a matter of controversy. Some Americans view the flag as a symbol of Southern Heritage, while other Americans view it as a racist symbol that hearkens back to the era of slavery.

It is unknown if more games will be removed from the iOS App Store, and if the games removed will sacrifice historical accuracy in order to remove the confederate imagery from their games and possibly return to the App Store.