| Here's a question to that end: Can you play as the Confederate army? I can certainly see a game that is a valuable teaching tool also being joyfully used by someone to imagine the south rising again, every day after working as a TSA agent. While I wouldn't really hold the developer of such a game morally responsible, I think what people are missing out on here is that Apple doesn't want to participate in distributing a game that could be a PR disaster for them. This actually fits rather well into Steve Jobs', "Freedom from porn" notion, that essentially the opportunity to play a civil war reenactment as the Confederate army is more or less equal to racist war porn. In leftist politics, Apple often gets to stand in for the entire computer industry, so let's say this game were available on all platforms, at some point, someone is going to say, "And look at Apple, THEY still distribute video games that let people play as the confederate army!" Even if you try to explain to a person with this position that, well, Google, Microsoft, Sony, and Valve all also distribute this game, you're unlikely to dent their argument. In this way, Apple's brand is constantly being eroded in political conversations that have little to do with them, and they may have some foresight that continuing to distribute this game would blow up in their face. OR, even though all of that is true, they will decide to reverse this because it's a historically accurate teaching tool. Time will tell. |