The App Report: Osama bin Laden's Death's Role in the App Store - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 04 May 2011 / 3,211 Views
With all the talk about Twitter having its first CNN moment "covering" Osama bin Laden's death (think: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson can safely claim "First!" on spreading the news) and the internet's obsession with the man in general, let's step back for a moment and think about what this means for gaming. Specifically, the App Store, of course.
Osama bin Laden has been no stranger to gaming in the past. Quickly after the attacks on U.S. soil via suicide attacks in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, plenty of flash games rose up and made the hunt for the man interactive. Osama's likeness and reputation even saw release on retail shelves by way of Fugitive Hunter for PS2, Xbox, and PC that allowed the player to blast his way to the terrorist's lair and shoot him right in the face...much like the real-life U.S. Navy SEAL soldiers did last Sunday.
The renewed interest has spawned new titles again. Tabloid games, as they have been called in the past, are video game experiences that are made as a reaction to whatever's taken the public's attention at the moment. In general, they have merely existed as quickly-developed flash games to take advantage of the free publicity afforded to the makers by the news of the day.
Typing in a search for "Osama" at Newgrounds returns 250+ games related to the late al-Qaeda group leader. The guy is quite popular. Many of the games have been created prior to Sunday's events and some even before the advent of Apple's revolutionary App Store.
What should be interesting is whether flash games easily developed and published on Newsgrounds can translate to the App Store. Games on Apple's platform have publicly come under scrutiny quite a bit lately and not at all for political statements or tabloid-esque gaming.
4th and Battery, PopCap Games's experimental games label, had to resubmit their first title, Unpleasant Horse, for violent content last month. But, then again, fart apps are perfectly fine to sit alongside such great titles as Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP and Infinity Blade with no problem at all.
The rules Apple applies to developers looking to be available on the App Store have been frustratingly vague and rarely visible to even know the lines one can or can't cross. On Monday, one game, Falling Fred got through Apple's all-seeing eye and updated to include "Ogama Ben Ladder" as a playable character so political, if even slightly, references may be okay by Apple's nebulous guidelines.
Falling Fred is a simple, fall-and-survive game that strives for entertainment and not for making political statements but it's one of the few games this week that have taken up tabloid gaming to the App Store. We'll see if there's more where that came from.
Agree? Disagree? Feel free to start up a discussion in the comments, wherever your loyalties may lie.
[The App Report focuses on Carlos Macias' ramblings on everything iPhone gaming (and maybe other mobile things outside of Apple's influence). If it's related to an app or downloadable game and it isn't held together by a physical box, the topic of the week will have a place in this column. He does not own an iPhone (read: hates contracts) but acts as if he does as his iPod Touch serves the same purpose with front and rear-facing cameras and a microphone picking up the slack. He can be reached at carlos_macias@ymail.com for potential app coverage and other inquiries.]
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