Apple to Ban another 100+ existing games from iPhone

2010-04-12

Apple's recent announcement that iPhone apps must not be written in anything other than C, C++, Objective C or WebKit JavaScript and must not use any layer to access the OS has been widely reported as being a shot against Adobe Flash.

That may be true but it also means that applications written with Unity3D, Torque and Unreal will also be banned.

All of those systems are exactly the equivalent of Flash. They each use a C/C++ code base engine to allow people to write games in another language that runs cross platform. For Unity3D that language is C# or any language that runs in Mono. For Torque that language is TorqueScript, for Unreal that language is UnrealScript.

โ€œ3.3.1 โ€” Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).โ€

Here's a list of 42+ SHIPPING games on iPhone built on Unity. http://unity3d.com/gallery/game−list/

Here's a list of 68+ SHIPPING games on iPhone using Torque http://www.torquepowered.com/games/torque−2d−iphone

I'm sure there are countless others as well as several Unreal games in development.

Section 3.3.1 has effectively banned all of these games.

That also doesn't account for the hundreds or thousands of games not using a commercial engine but still using a language other than C/C++ as their core language. Many games use languages like Lua or GameMonkey or custom languages.

For example, all the LucasArts adventure games use the SCUMM engine which also effectively violates section 3.3.1 above.

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