Blips: Gaming the System

Source: The strange, shady world of $1,000 iOS apps
Author: Mike Wehner
Site: Tuaw

It's rough out there in the App Store world, to the extent that some game developers are attempting to pull one over on the system through some price fluctuation trickery. In a report by Mike Wehner for The Unofficial Apple Weblog, it is revealed why a simple game like The Fleas, made by Vhlamlab, would retail for $999.99. Turns out it's part of a scheme to get some eyeballs on the game by having it show up on the App Store's "Top Grossing" list. So how do they earn enough money in sales to rank on such a list? Well, that's the trick of it.

There is some back door money handling going on that results in, say, $10,000 being loaned for purchasing the game across 10 accounts. Once Apple takes their 30%, the developers have spent $3,000 to get their game on a very visible list for a few hours. At this point, the price is dropped back down to $1 to try and capitalize on legitimate sales and attempt to recoup that $3,000. It seems like an incredibly risky and shady thing to do for such a potentially small payoff, but it does happen. In fact, as Wehner notes, The Fleas is still selling for $1,000. Apparently, some people have actually bought it at that price. Madness, I say.

Blips: Apple Bans Again

Source: Apple bans Joyful Executions iOS game that satirizes North Korea
Author: Stuart Dredge
Site: The Guardian

I can't say this is much of a surprise. Apple has rejected Joyful Executions, a satirical game where you play the leader of a North Korean execution squad, from sale in its App Store. Seeing as games like Phone Story and Sweatshop didn't pass Apple's archaic test, it was likely that Joyful Executions would be turned down as well. I really have to wonder how long Apple is going to go before changing this policy of viewing games as less appropriate venue for personal expression than other forms of media on its digital shelves. I'm sure it's burning through some goodwill from the development community even if it's not currently impacting the corporation's bottom line.

Though I assume developer 8-Bit Underpants would have loved to see their game available to the vast iOS market, these days, being rejected from the App Store brings it's own kind of publicity as well. I mean, I might not have heard of the game had it otherwise just been released quietly into a crowded marketplace. Who's to say, though as this kind of news becomes more frequent, I'm curious how perception of banned games will change. I think I smell a banned games Android Humble Bundle in the works...

Blips: Ban All the Things!

Source: Apple rejects the notion that games are the place for comment, but it's built right into the medium
Author: Steven Poole
Site: Edge

Apple's tenuous relationship with games soldiers on. With the recent removal of Sweatshop HD from the App Store, Apple has proven that they fundamentally do not understand games except the part where selling them is good for business. Steven Poole argues that this lack of comprehension isn't just that Apple fails to see that games can "mean something," but that any man-made interactive product implicitly conveys meaning through "procedural rhetoric." If Apple rejects a game for espousing political, social, or religious opinions, shouldn't the rest of the App Store be held to the same standards? In which case, Poole concludes, shouldn't everything else be banned too?

What Apple seems to be filtering, other than singling out games, is message explicitness. Both Sweatshop HD and the previously banned Phone Story get right to the heart of their chosen subject matter. Sweatshop HD is about running a sweatshop and what a horrible exploitive system it is. Likewise, Phone Story presented an interactive narrative of smartphone manufacturing and certain inhumane practices that have been purportedly implemented in those processes. In both cases, it's difficult to miss the point of what the developers are getting at.

Perhaps it's time for developers to go subliminal. Why struggle past Apple's gatekeepers when you can just hypnotize your way to the store front and deep into players' brains. Why, you could even make a game that's so fun to play, it's almost like people are addicted to it, like they have a gambling problem or some other detrimental condition. But who am I kidding, Apple would never let games like that through when they don't allow socially conscious "message" games, right?