Apple removes games with Confederate flags

Mike Snider | USA TODAY

The drive to remove the Confederate flag has now reached the virtual world.

Apple announced Thursday that it would be removing apps from its App Store that it deemed offensive.

"We have removed apps from the App Store that use the Confederate flag in offensive or mean-spirited ways, which is in violation of our guidelines," the company said in a statement. "We are not removing apps that display the Confederate flag for educational or historical uses."

The move by Apple is unjust, say the developers of the game Ultimate General: Gettysburg. Apple told the developers at Game-Labs that the game could be reinstated if the Confederate flag were removed. The game maker won't do it, the company said on its blog.

"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," Game-Labs said. "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. We really hope that Apple's decision will achieve the desired results. ... We can't change history, but we can change the future."

Also gone from the App Store are several games including Civil War: 1863 from Hunted Cow Games.

That game and three others -- Civil War: 1862, Civil War: 1864 and Civil War: Gettysburg -- were removed "without any warning, because they used the Confederate flag," said Andrew Mulholland, co-founder of Hunted Cow Studios. "It seems disappointing that they would remove it as they weren't being used in an offensive way, being that they were historical war games and hence it was the flag used at the time."

The studio is reworking the games to replace the "Stars and Bars" Confederate flag with the earlier flag used until late 1862, he said. "Hopefully they'll accept the changes, but it will have to go back through the review process again. We're in no way sympathetic to the use of the flag in an offensive way, we used it purely because historically that was the flag that was used at the time."

Removing such strategy simulation games is misguided, said journalist Jeff Grubb on news site GamesBeat. "It isn't just pulling consumer products like mugs that feature the stars and bars. It is banning creative expression from its App Store, which is one of the largest digital-distribution channels on the planet," he wrote. "This means that if you want to make a game about the Civil War, you cannot accurately portray the symbols of that conflict."

Earlier in the week, the momentum to end public displays of the Confederate flag reached brick-and-mortar retailers such as Walmart and Sears, as well as online retailers Amazon and eBay. Those outlets agreed to remove rebel-flagged items from their store shelves and websites.

Public outrage about the flag began last week following the shooting June 17 of nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. The flag had been flying on the South Carolina statehouse grounds near the Capitol dome.

Protesters rallied there on Tuesday to convince legislators to remove the flag, something that Gov. Nikki Haley had vowed to do. The South Carolina House of Representatives is expected to debate the issue.

A new game launched on the web Thursday sought to make a political statement of its own. BooFlag, created by Carnegie Mellon University professor Paolo Pedercini, lets players boo into their computer microphone to lower the flag.

At the bottom of the flagpole, the flag bursts into flames, then ashes. Then up pop the words: "Good Job! Institutional Racism and Epidemic Gun Violence Probably Addressed."

Pedercini has had his work banned from the App Store before. Four years ago, he created a game called PhoneStory that portrayed the creation of smartphones -- you would even control soldiers watching kids harvesting rare earth metals from the ground. The game was approved then removed.

It was "an eerie coincidence" that Pedercini heard of the game just five minutes before posting his game Thursday. Back then, "there were people saying that Apple had the 'right' to filter critical content from their own platform," he said. "But in this confederate flag move everybody seems to condemn the paternalism and the overreach."

Among his concerns is that by prohibiting the flag's usage an opportunity to understand it in context can be lost, Pedercini says, and the symbol could also see an increased power among groups such as white supremacists.

And removing the flag from sight can inhibit actual progress on gun control and hate crimes. "You risk to mistake a symbolic victory with an actual victory," Pedercini said.

Follow Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider