The Diaoyu/Senkaku islands are a hotly contested smattering of land between the nations of China and Japan which both nations claim as their own. Now Apple has pulled an app from the App Store that had Chinese players fighting off hordes of stereotyped Japanese enemies.
Defend The Diaoyu was only released in the Chinese version of the App Store, and had the user fighting off hordes of ninja, sumo wrestlers, and other attackers in a gameplay described as being similar to Plants vs Zombies. According to China Daily the app has now been pulled, and the developers state d ”we were given no explanation.”
Funnily enough, I’m pretty sure I can guess why. The game had Japanese soldiers being dismembered, was full of ethnic stereotypes, and the app description called for you to ”annihilate any attempt by the Japanese devils to come ashore our islands.”
Unsurprisingly, such content falls afoul of Apple’s rule that apps “cannot target a specific race, culture, real government or corporation or any other real entity.” Yeah, that’d do it.
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is it wrong that I totally want to play this for a good laugh?