Apple has removed a whole swathe of historical war games from the App Store because they feature the Confederate flag.

The games, which include Ultimate General: Gettysburg, Civil War: 1862, and Civil War the Battle Game, were removed by the firm “because they feature images of the Confederate flag in offensive and mean-spirited ways”, according to industry site TouchArcade.

Apple cited its app store review guidelines in a letter to affected developers, stating: “Apps containing references or commentary about a religious, cultural or ethnic group that are defamatory, offensive, mean-spirited or likely to expose the targeted group to harm or violence will be rejected.”

The company appears to be following the lead of retail establishments such as WalMart, which has recently announced that it will no longer sell the Confederate flag in the wake of the Charleston shooting.

But the majority of the affected games are relatively staid turn-based strategy games, using the Confederate flag in the appropriate historical context to represent the forces of the Confederate army. “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,” the developer of Civil War: 1862 told TouchArcade.

Games featuring the Nazi flag remain available on the App Store; and unlike the removed civil war games, many do not claim historical accuracy. In Wolfenstein 3D, players storm a Nazi castle before killing a robot Hitler. The game is £1.49 on iPhone and iPad.

Elsewhere on the iTunes store, Apple continues to sell Primal Scream’s Give Out But Don’t Give Up, Legend by Lynyrd Skynyrd and all seven seasons of Dukes of Hazzard.

The Guardian has asked Apple for comment.