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

Fair enough. We'll see if it gets through this time.

Actually, I can totally buy this. I've been making iOS games for about 5 years now. December is the most insanely busiest time of the year. This is because people want to have their app released / have their hot new version of their app ready by Chrsitmas when everyone gets their new iToys. In addition, the app store submission process closes in mid December for Christmas break.

So this means the submission center is overrun. They (probably) account for this by getting a bunch of temp hires AND they get a little fast and lose with the time they can devote for each review. I get the feeling they (currently) are not looking at the games that closely so they can get everything done.

So, in other words, it is likely this wasn't a case of a bunch of reviewers getting together and looking at the nudity and saying "We are defining this as inappropriate for the app store." Instead, it seems like a reviewer saw the nudity toggle, said "Oh, porn isn't allowed" rejected it, and went on to the next app. I think it's entirely possible that if this game was put through a month or two ago, we wouldn't have been having this conversation.

@koolaid said:

This. Even during less busy times of the year, each app only spends about 5-15 minutes on average being reviewed by an actual person (most of the review time is spent in the queue, or undergoing static analysis to detect for private API usage or embedded interpreters) so it's not uncommon to have something rejected because the reviewer misapplied a certain guideline. In these cases, you can appeal to the review board, who are much more thorough and regularly reverse app rejections.

This sort of thing certainly makes it appear as if it takes a couple tries to get your submission in front of actual human eyes at Apple. In a way, it's understandable; I am sure they are inundated with submissions and want to automate as much as possible.

I don't understand what he means by double standard in this case. A double standard would be allowing a video porn app and not a video game that had porn for instance. Having a policy about nudity is not a double standard. It might be censorship, but I really don't get the reference to a double standard.

@wewantsthering: Well, it's a double standard when they allow one game with nudity (the wolf among us) and not for this game.

@monkeyman04: Oh I assumed they also censored games like that on iOS. In the past, they didn't let anything like that through. Couldn't also be the case that the game's rating was set to low considering the nudity? Jumping immediately to blame Apple is the standard thing to do, but it's not always accurate. :-)

Me neither. It's not a double standard... it's just a standard - and Apple decides what passes that standard and what doesn't.

Also, Apple's content rating system has a 17+ rating which specifically includes allowances for nudity. Papers, Please is currently rated 12+ which does not allow nudity, so I'd imagine it's probably something to do with that.

These news reports (and sorry Patrick because I really enjoy your writing style, video features, podcast appearances etc) don't really add anything to the site, and in my opinion actually detract from it. They just seem a little flippant and uninformed.

I don't come to Giant Bomb for fast news, I come for good news. Take some time and write a nice piece. There are 9000 other websites on the internet where I can get up-to-the-second reports that have to be edited 9 minutes later.

By "misunderstanding" I'm sure they mean "People were saying bad things about us so we should claim it was a mistake"

Glad everything worked out. The screening was one of the major parts of what made that game appropriately uncomfortable.

I guess it finally got the .....stamp of approval.......

@generalbison: Wtf? It was a mistake - and they are admitting to it - and offering the game developer a solution. They are basically oweing up to it, it's a completely normal thing to do. When you make a mistake, admit it when you realize, and then offer a solution.

And obligatory line stating this doesn't mean I agree with their policies, blah blah blah........... feels really unnecesarry to say that though. There's a lot of wasted energy in this thread. Sure Apple is a big company but if you care that much about censorship, fight against some real world issues instead of Apple and a video game.

Ha

It was resolved, so why would Patrick have to update anything about his original story anymore? It's fair to add that single line about double standards. If this and other news stories did not run the web, chances are the game would have been censored. So this is a piece of good journalism that actually has an impact on the outcome.

@dan_citi: So much porn!

Yeah, that is unfortunate - I wonder if he plans on releasing this on Google Play, and if so I wonder if it would censored as well?

@amirite: It doesn't sound like a mistake at all, in someone's mind nudity=pornography and they made that decision. I seriously can't imagine anyone mistaking Papers Please for pornography or gratuitous nudity, unless the mistake was pressing the wrong button... or stamp as the case may be.

so nudity will be an option now? hmm :/

@generalbison: Yup exactly - someONE. A PERSON reviewed the game (which did not have this 'nudity' option checked) and based on the classifications that Apple tells them, they make the best decision they can. And guess what maybe that person has never heard of Papers, Please. And arguably - if the dev did not have this 'nudity' option checked - it's pretty logical that it would get rejected for nudity if it was not submitted as such. Apple is a large corporation and when you're trying to get your game distributed by a large corporation that has a machine for approving games, there are bound to be some misunderstandings. But that IS the business world - nobody has any kind of 'right' to have their game distributed by Apple, and these sort of misunderstanding happen all the time, you just need to make sure to follow up with the company and communicate to them why they made an incorrect decision. That's it. If you think it's supposed to be a perfect system where nobody at Apple EVER makes a slightly misinformed decision, you're naive. (also don't forget, this marketplace is NOT for us 'gamers', it is for everybody, the classifications are just different and thats something you need to accept if you're buying games on iOS)

I think by 'mistake' you're imagining that they're making up an excuse or something like "Ohhh our servers were down NOT OUR FAULT!!". They are not. They're admitting they're wrong "this game did not have a nudity option checked, which may have confused our reviewer. Hey game dev - can you try resubmitting with the nudity option, and we will make sure to take extra care this time to examine the context of the nudity closer"? Apple does NOT have time to assemble a meeting and talk for 40 minutes about a single game and whether or not it was classified wrong, but if a game dev reaches out (or an article is published) then they will pay extra attention.

It's really simple, and is the definition of a misunderstanding. It's not fair to say "Oh that was the decision they made the first time so they are pieces of shit!!" In life, people say all kinds of things - sometimes they are wrong, and they correct themselves. That is life. The responsible thing to do is to communicate, not to get angry and hate them.

@generalbison said:

Lucas Pope mentioned on Twitter that the reviewer saw the option to toggle nudity on and off in the settings screen and assumed it was pornographic without actually seeing the scene in question.

I can't help what gets me off, man. Maybe I should quit working in the App Censor Center, though...

Apple has already reversed their stance on this, likely due to all the headlines, so you can expect the next update for the game to have the nudity option back in.

What I think is much more telling in this story is that the removal of the pixelated boobs and dongs made the difference of the game's rating going down from 17+ to 12+. Papers, Please is an excellent game, but it is NOT for children, which has got everything to do with the game's theme/content, not some twigs 'n' berries. This is a great case of how messed up our ratings system is in the west, and the archaic conservative values upon which it was based.

At least he didn't threaten to kill steve jobs.

Pretty much. Even without the nudity, the game still has you essentially gunning down the guys that try to jump the wall.

My biggest issue with Apple isn't really Papers, Please. It's the annoying double standard. They are intolerant of most adult content in games and apps, yet completely indifferent to sexual content in movies and music, leaving discretion up to the movie ratings system and an explicit tag for 18+ content.

Like Patrick points out on Bomin in the AM, at least they openly recognize the double standard right at the beginning of their policy. In fact, I kind of love their wording for it.

Patrick, please state what you mean by double standard.