Apple rejects indie game The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth over child violence

Posted:
in iPhone
The sequel to cult indie game The Binding of Isaac will not be allowed in the App Store -- at least for now -- thanks to what Apple has reportedly deemed to be themes of violence toward children.




"Your app contains content or features that depict violence towards, or abuse of, children, which is not allowed on the App [Store]," an Apple reviewer wrote in a rejection notice tweeted by studio head Tyrone Rodriguez. The missive was first noted by Polygon.

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is an update to the cult indie hit The Binding of Isaac, based on the biblical story of the same name. In the story, God commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac -- his son -- as a test of faith; the sacrifice is halted by the angel of God before it can be carried out.

In the game, Isaac is a young boy whose mother is similarly inclined. Players work to help Isaac escape from the basement, culminating in a boss battle against his mother.

This is not the first time The Binding of Isaac has faced opposition from a platform owner. In 2012, Nintendo rejected a planned 3DS port over "questionable religious content" -- though Rebirth was allowed to launch on the 3DS and Wii U last year.

Apple, too, has faced criticism over its censorship of the App Store. In 2014, the company banned marijuana growing game Weed Firm and last year squabbled with developers over confederate flag imagery in some Civil War games.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    Absolutely ridiculous.  The game deserves an adults-only rating, but does not feature child abuse in an exploitive way.  This game is regularly featured in the news and by reviewers as an innovative expansion of the art of video gaming by confronting real moral issues.  No reasonable person could conclude this game deserves to be completely barred.  Steve Jobs talked about these restrictive policies as "growing pains" while the App Store better figured out a balance of curation and quality.  Seems like it still has some growing to do.  
    lord amhranmoreck
  • Reply 2 of 10
    calicali Posts: 3,494member
    I hate how it's a Zelda ripoff. Not the story but the game design looks ripped from the 1985 Nintendo Zelda dungeons.
    moreck
  • Reply 3 of 10
    cali said:
    I hate how it's a Zelda ripoff. Not the story but the game design looks ripped from the 1985 Nintendo Zelda dungeons.
    News flash for you but there's quite a few of these "Zelda Ripoffs" in the gaming world
  • Reply 4 of 10
    msanttimsantti Posts: 1,377member
    Apple sometimes just too tight fisted.
    lord amhran
  • Reply 5 of 10
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    Apple doesn't get games. Steve didn't, despite announcing that he was going to make Macs the best gaming machines in the world back in 1999, and Tim doesn't get it either. Years behind in OpenGL development for OS X, restricting games on Apple TV to ones that can be played with the supplied remote only, failing to snatch up Bungie when they could, losing support from Blizzard for Overwatch. Going mobile on desktop and phasing out dGPUs isn't helping.

    I've lost hope by now. It's really sad to say that after 20 years of loyal Mac gaming, but my next gaming PC is arguably going to be just that. A PC.
    lord amhran
  • Reply 6 of 10
    And yet the same game is available in the resolutely kid-friendly Nintendo eShop. I think that tells you everything you need to know about how imbecilic Apple's current vetting policies are.
    misterryan07lord amhran
  • Reply 7 of 10
    I love Macs, but they will never be good for gaming. Even iJustine has a gaming PC. That's enough to tell you something.
  • Reply 8 of 10
    And yet the same game is available in the resolutely kid-friendly Nintendo eShop. I think that tells you everything you need to know about how imbecilic Apple's current vetting policies are.
    Ive said this before and I'll say it again, and there are plenty of posters (apple fanboys as I see it) that say I am just trolling, but reality is Tim Ccok's Apple has its head straight up its ass.
    lord amhran
  • Reply 9 of 10
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    sucaj said:
    The game deserves an adults-only rating, but does not feature child abuse in an exploitive way.
    I wouldn't even say an AO rating, it's just cartoon violence, the game itself is just throwing blobs around:





    Apple has allowed the following into the App Store:



    which is 18-rated and Binding of Isaac isn't that explicit. They need to treat games the same way they treat books and films and do it consistently.

    Apple is a liberal company with liberal employees and I don't understand why it is that there's a tendency these days for people with these values to shy away from offending anyone. It's supposed to be the opposite. Liberal movements over the years have fought against censorship. It doesn't mean supporting everything that offends people, tolerance doesn't equate to support but you don't censor mildly offensive things like this.

    They just need to do what they enforce in apps, which is that offensive material is hidden by default. They can still ban really explicit content but just hide things that might cause offense behind a warning and let people be the judge. I wouldn't hide this game at all though.

    Fiction needs to be allowed to be expressive, that's part of what makes it entertaining and Apple of all companies should on the side of creatives, not the perpetually offended ones. If there are legitimate complaints about an app after it is published then they can review the decision to let it in the store. They can also have a button that says an app isn't offensive and doesn't deserve to be hidden. Let the customers be the judge.

    Lets say an app goes in and it gets hidden by default and 10,000 people vote it as inoffensive and it is unhidden by default. If someone else comes along and votes it as offensive, it can tell them that only maybe 100 people said it was offensive and 10,000 said it wasn't so it stays unhidden. It removes the moral decision from Apple and puts it on the customers. These hidden apps would not be visible at all under parental controls and the controls would only need to be enabled on apps they weren't sure about.

    It's such unnecessary bad publicity for them every time this happens and it will keep happening until they change how apps are reviewed.
  • Reply 10 of 10
    bluefire1bluefire1 Posts: 1,301member
    Here we go again--Apple dictating to adults that we can't purchase an app because the company deemed it inappropriate.
    Of all the things I love about Apple. their tight-assed censorship practices isn't one of them.
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