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Box Shaped Games claims that it has received an “unfair” rejection from Apple after recently submitting what would have been its debut App Store title, the ragdoll pain simulator Max Injury.
Soon after submitting Max Injury, the company received a standard Apple rejection notice, which simply stated that the application featured “objectionable content.” Developers have criticized Apple’s review process in the past, claiming that its nebulous guidelines provide little insight into what kind of content is acceptable for App Store release.
Box Shaped Games calls its rejection into question, citing Apple’s approval of similar titles like Ouch! and Mr. Smith. Ouch! allows users to virtually abuse a ragdoll figure that reacts realistically to injury, while Mr. Smith features a human-like character in a number of dangerous and painful situations.
I’d personally speculate that Apple based its rejection on the fact that Max Injury’s gameplay, which involves pushing a character down a flight of stairs, is more easily reproducible in the real world than the fantasy situations found in Ouch! and Mr. Smith. It’s unlikely that Apple will elaborate on the reasoning behind its decision, however.
Box Shaped Games plans to resubmit the title at a later date with less realistic character models, in hopes that the changes will pass Apple’s approval process. A video of the rejected version of Max Injury is below.
So, the App “Ow My Balls!” is OK, but this app isn’t? Apple really needs to get it’s act together damn it. I’m really getting sick and tired of hearing this kind of news.
This ragdoll pain sim looks pretty impressive!
developers for iphone dont get tired of copy PSN games? first, Rolando with Loco Roco. them, was Flow with that app that was removed for plagiarims, and now, this ugly rejected that copy Pain. because of this, many people cant see iphone has a real game device. grow up!
Thanks Dave.M!
There’s a slight error in this article in that it actually toke about month to get back to us with a rejection. That, couple with rejection with no specific details, and approval of other similar games doesn’t help developer much.
Jaco, LocoRoco and Rolando are not even remotely similar, unless you want to say that the main “characters” are both round and so, shouldn’t be allowed to be added. Flow was originally a Flash app.
If the developers of LocoRoco felt that there was “plagiarims”, they could send out a cease and desist letter to ngmoco.
In the case of flOw, the original developer did in fact contact “that app that was removed for plagiarims”. He probably wouldn’t have had an issue with the “port” to the iPhone. However, he sold the rights to Sony for the Playstation and that as they say is that.
I’d say this copies more from Stair Dismount than Pain, though it seems to lose the puzzle game aspect of Stair Dismount by letting you continuously nudge the ragdoll.
[...] isn’t unusual, as many apps have seen delays and rejections due to unexpected violations of Apple’s standards for content. What makes this story [...]