Papers, Please Coming to iPad With Some Unfortunate Changes [UPDATED]

UPDATE: It looks like Apple and Pope might have resolved this issue.

"Just talked to Apple," said Pope. "The initial rejection for porn was a misunderstanding on their part. They suggested I resubmit with the nudity option."

This doesn't change Apple's general policy and double standard approach to games and apps, but we'll take it.

--

When Papers, Please was released, it was an obvious candidate for tablets. An iPad version is coming very soon, but designer Lucas Pope has revealed Apple's restrictive guidelines means it's been altered.

Most notably, Pope was forced to remove the player's ability to screen individuals, which allowed you see them semi-naked. The decision to (or to not) screen was one of many uncomfortable decisions players grappled with in Papers, Please, and it's removal from the iPad version dulls some of the game's impact.

The iPad version is coming tomorrow, December 12.

Heh, kind of a funny coincidence for this article to go up with a spam thread selling fake totally genuine passports right below it.

@yummylee: Jorji made it to GiantBomb to post I guess? :^)

Seems like a weird justification on Apple's part.

Just 'semi-naked'? I'm not sure if that's how I'd describe full frontal nudity.

Wait, he said no *full* nudity. There was an underpants option in the original version. Sounds like that might be in the iOS version when screening?

From Pope's tweets I gather that he didn't remove the screening option. Just the "Full nudity" option. Screening is still in, but people will be wearing undies.

That's unfortunate, but hardly surprising.

I checked out the toned-down setting that is already in the PC release (assuming that actually is what the iPad version will be limited too) and it seems fine even though it really does take away some of the uncomfortable edge for me.

Either way it's quite unfortunate that Apple wants to make that decision for their users even though it's not unexpected. In my ideal world people suggesting those scenes might be pornographic, other than in the sense that practically anything could be viewed as porn by someone, wouldn't have their job for very long. I sure hope Steam doesn't get up to more bullshit than they (might) have to legally.

In the grand scheme of things, this isn't really a big deal but seriously, Apple can fuck off with this shit. No one's going to take iOS seriously as a platform when they're constantly sticking their hands all over other people's games.

So silly, but understandable considering apple and their weird obsession over content control.

Well, I guess it makes sense. Apple does edit nudity out of movies and music videos they sell on iTunes too. Good thing this ruling is consistent with the other content they sell, and not a ridiculous double standard.

Sadly, I imagine that Apple actively doesn't want people to take their mobile platform "seriously" for games. They've made unimaginable heaps of money from kids playing shitty games with in-app purchases on iDevices their parents bought them.

If those same parents had to fear that little Johnny or Sally could be morally corrupted by a game of all things, they wouldn't be so willing to let them microtransact themselves unsupervised.

Puritanical fuckers.

Apple showing some really awful double standards here. Sad stuff.

@hassun: @perfidioussinn: Great stuff guys. Double standards for everyone!

Damn Patrick how quick did you get back from SF? I mean didnt you leave yesterday? No rest for the wicked huh?

@mak_wikus said:

Just pinging @patrickklepek so he hopefully notices this soon enough and edits the article.

Having played Papers, Please, Apple seems to equate any nudity with pornography because none of the content in that game could be described as pornographic. There are "sex" scenes in PG-13 movies that are more hardcore than what is in Papers, Please.

WTF! Even Potter Stewart would give this game a pass.

That fucking sucks.

Kiddiefying Papers, Please? That's not Papers, Please. That's Barbie, Please.

Kind of disappointing but that said, I'm totally interested in trying this on the iPad.

I'm cool with denying poor immigrants for a bonus and taking bribes to pay for my sick family's heating bills, but goddamn if I see one fucking nipple I'm gonna be so uncomfortable.How can I return to witnessing terrorist attacks after seeing that shit?

It is true that it is kinda of a small change. But I think it's still important that we try and stop this stuff when it happens. Slippery slope and all that.

It's funny. I wonder if GamerGate will care at all about this. They seem to think bad review scores are "censorship." This is much closer to real censorship (though still not really because Apple isn't the government), but at the same time Papers Please does not seem like the kind of game GamerGate would go to bat for.

EDIT: Went over to Kotaku in action. Saw the sentence "Gamergate's mighty hammer of ethics" used un-ironically. Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum.

Wait, you said that there is no scanning option, but the tweet from Lucas Pope only says that the scanning mode has no full nudity option? It sounds like the scanning is still in the game; in the PC version you could choose whether or not to have nudity in the scans. If you turned it off, the scan images showed people in their underwear.

@joshwent said:

I don't think Apple are stricter when it comes to games for economic reasons; rather, they see games as toys, and not artistic entertainment worth protecting the same way as music, books and movies are. They're not entirely to blame, either. Until culture at large (including games culture) takes games seriously, why should Apple?

@perfidioussinn: @rethla: Wait, what's the deal here? Does Apply censor it all out of everything? I was under the impression that they didn't.

I mean I am against all forms of censoring, but if they censor it out of everything I'm willing to concede it's not a double standard at least.

You can see their dingy! ILLEGAL!!!!!!

"pornographic content." Apple employees watch some weird porn.

@erinisadrunk said:

I mean, equating nudity with pornography is not just Apple. That's ratings boards in America as a whole. The lineage of puritanical settlers in America has led to the belief that nudity is inherently sexual, even in contexts like this where it is very much not.

Papers please was so awesome, and reminds me how bad this years releases compare to last years.

Doesn't apple allow like violent content? They see a badly drawn penis though and its off to the races!

Nudity = Porn

Thanks for clearing that up Apple, that was the only way to go about that.

Not like using a rating system for it's intended use would have done anything anyway.

Guess we all just learnt that Steam promotes pornographic content.

I'm kinda bummed he'd rather works on releasing a bogged-down version of his game than a fully-featured version on a dedicated handheld platform. At the very least develop for android simultaneously but nope, still chasing that illusionary iOS pot of gold...

I'm with everyone else in being super confused about Apple's weird, overly conservative policies on their content. Or rather, just the "pornographic" content that contains nudity of any kind. Apple has always been a very liberal, progressive company in their ideals, but for whatever reason rules their App Store with an iron, FOX News fist! Ugh.

That doesn't sound too bad.

Man I will probably buy this again, I can imagine touch controls making it much nicer to play. Got a little hectic for my mouse skills some times!

The flaw in that point is that Apple does nothing to "protect" music, books, and movies. They just passively offer that content to their users and leave them to decide what's acceptable (AFAIK).

The point of games being seen as toys (meaning largely played by children, even if that's increasingly wrong) is just simultaneously an economic one, as many of those kids are using their parent's money to buy apps and the devices they're played on. So the push on Apple's behalf for this kind of censorship is by default business-based precisely because games aren't taken seriously.

Although, I'd also argue that the larger problem in this case lies not with Apple's concerns and the uneducated majority not seeing the value in games for adults, but more so in our culture's perniciously puritanical view of the human body itself. With groups like the MPAA and the FCC still judging sexual content and non-sexual nudity exponentially harsher than violence, it's much, much larger than video games.

(It's worth noting that, I believe, Papers, Please was never rated by the ESRB)

"Pornographic content"? Really?

Stupid as fuck.

I wonder what all the people who supported censorship of GTAV will think of this.

Yawn. Yet another reason for everyone to come out of the woodwork and claim "censorship is bad" in some obtuse, personal way.

I'm all for allowing a game to include content, especially when it was already in said content, but this lack of respect for other peoples/companies opinions/beliefs/choices is really sad. Not one, single, thoughtful approach can be found in this thread above my post that explains why they believe Apple isn't taking the correction action here. Just a lot of people that think they understand what freedom entails, and plenty more that forget there are two sides to everything.

I'm gonna be honest here. I'm looking at the negative connotations in the article, and all the accusations of censorship in the comments, and then I'm looking at the actual change (singular) they're making to the iOS version... and it doesn't seem like that big a deal at all. The objective of the screenings was to make the player feel like they were invading the subject's privacy, not to show the player pixellated naked people. It will still feel invasive even if the images show them in their underwear, and somehow I doubt that altering one feature will "dull the impact" of the game.

Apple is not a democracy, to put it as bluntly as possible. I don't mean to be a dick about it, honestly, but having your games hosted on their privately-owned service is a privilege, and if they want to insist on a strict no-nudity policy, that's well within their rights. Hell, Giant Bomb did the same thing after the Naked Cartoon Pussy controversy, when people were posting nude shots and 'action shots' from Japanese porn games, and nobody (reasonable) called it censorship back then.

Well that's stupid.

Violating the privacy of whoever I was screening added to the experience and was apart of it. They need to be full nude to get that disgusting feeling. Now it's just not there in this version. Sucks for people buying this on iPad.

The freedom for Apple to constrain artistic freedom?

@perfidioussinn: I would be so pissed if I bought titanic to torque one off and they took kate winslets boobs out.

Are you for real??

If I had a nickle for every time I savagely masturbated to Papers, Please, I'd be a millionaire.

@joshwent said:

What I mean is that music, books and movies are, for the most part, protected from the kind of scrutiny that games and apps are subjected to, primarily because they are considered culturally significant.

I don't know, the App Store Review Guidelines are full of esoteric rules — most of which have no economic motivator — so I have a hard time believing that their rules on pornographic content are an exception. The guidelines are interpreted incredibly inconsistently too which makes discerning Apple's motives even trickier; I've been through dozens of app reviews over the past couple of years and there is often no rhyme or reason for why something is rejected.

That's a fair point, but I think this particular case has more to do with Apple's insistence that iOS games not tackle touchy subjects of any variety. They have similar rules regarding religion, culture and politics that games like Sweatshop HD have fallen afoul of previously, so this is definitely not a new phenomenon, and not one isolated to cases of nudity.

It really bothers me when people say that this isn't censorship because it is Apple and not a government. That is not true and never has been. Censorship is not just something that a government can do, especially in the world we live in today. Apple can censor something. You can censor yourself. It's not something that just the big bad government can take part in.

Apple should modify their policy to only include porn. That makes sense to me. Nudity is an unavoidable thing in life and in relation to Papers, Please it does add weight to the situation. It was a shocking moment when I had to scan my first civilian. Think about all the beautiful art made throughout all of human history that Apple is inadvertently calling offensive. It's an immature stance.

@spraynardtatum said:

You're right that non-governmental institutions can engage in censorship, but this really isn't a case of that. When you submit something to the App Store for review, you agree to a contract that binds you to the terms outlined in the App Store Review Guidelines. If your game or app is rejected because it doesn't meet those guidelines, you are still free to make that content available on other platforms. There is no speech being suppressed, just two businesses failing to come to terms.

Don't get me wrong, it sucks and Apple needs to take a serious look at the restrictions they place on iOS games, but it's not censorship.

@patrickklepek Are you sure that the screening has been removed completely? From his tweets, it just sounds like the full nudity has been removed. The PC game had a nudity option that gave the people you screened underwear in the photos if you turned it off.