Apple has made some efforts lately to show that the company cares about gaming, especially when it comes to the Mac. However, the company’s practice shows that there are still many things that need to change if it really wants to make the Mac a gaming platform. On Monday, Panic co-founder Cable Sasser revealed that the popular Untitled Goose Game was twice rejected by Apple’s Mac App Store.
Apple says no to Untitled Goose Game on the Mac App Store
Untitled Goose Game is a cross-platform game released in 2019 that quickly became very popular since it consists of the player controlling a goose to manipulate objects and complete a list of challenges. The game received critical acclaim and won several awards such as: B. DICE Game of the Year.
For those who don’t know, Untitled Goose Game is distributed by Panic – which is known for making many good macOS apps like Transmit and Prompt. Because of this, the developers felt it made sense to make the game available on the Mac App Store for macOS users. But things didn’t turn out the way they expected.
As Sasser said in a post on Mastodon (via Daring Fireball), Apple has twice rejected the macOS version of Untitled Goose Game. At first, the game was rejected because the reviewer thought the player couldn’t skip the credits. “We explained that you can skip the credits by holding spaces,” the developer said.
The macOS game was submitted for review a second time. But again, Apple dismissed the game claiming “something else.” Sasser said that back then the developers “just gave up and never bothered to resubmit.” The game was released for Mac users through Steam and the Epic Games Store.
A History of Game Developer Neglect
Stories about Apple’s neglect of game developers are nothing new. A former App Store games editor revealed in an article for The Guardian that the App Store Review team “couldn’t handle the amount of games that were coming through.”
According to the former employee, developers are “treated with contempt” and most of them have a “horror history of having their game repeatedly rejected for an arbitrary reason”. The report also mentions that Apple is doing very little to encourage developers to bring great games to the App Store.
Unsurprisingly, Apple has been investigated by many regulators around the world for anti-competitive and arbitrary practices related to the App Store.
I’ve already written here about how Apple needs to change its mindset if it really wants to compete in the gaming space. The App Store’s strict policies make developers of popular games uninterested in bringing them to Apple’s platforms. A clear example of this is when Apple required every tvOS game to be compatible with Siri Remote, which is impractical for some games.
A few weeks ago, Apple held a small event to promote games on its devices. However, that’s not enough to show that it really cares about games. And it’s a shame to see that great devices like iPhones, iPads, Macs, and even Apple TVs don’t have good games because of Apple’s arbitrary choices.
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