Devs work with Apple to restore games cut for Confederate flag use

Yesterday, Apple decided to remove a bunch of mobile games that feature Confederate flag imagery from its App Store without warning developers. An outcry ensued, and now reports are coming in from affected developers that Apple is allowing their games back on the App Store -- with some caveats.

Much like the brouhaha earlier this year over images of guns appearing in App Store game screenshots, Apple's main reason for the widespread delisting seems to be surface-level imagery.

Hexwar Studios had its Civil War: 1863 historical strategy game yanked from the App Store yesterday, but today Hexwar's Andrew Mulholland told Touch Arcade that "basically we need to remove prominent flags from the screenshots" and the app icon for Apple to allow it back onto the App Store. Sure enough, Civil War: 1863 has now back up on the App Store -- with slightly tweaked imagery.

More historical games are likely to return in the days ahead; an Apple representative told TechCrunch yesterday that "We have removed apps from the App Store that use the Confederate flag in offensive or mean-spirited ways," but claimed the company was working with developers to reinstate games that display the flag for historical reasons.