The top dog at U.K developer A-steroids, creator of Underworld: Sweet Deal for the iPhone, is worried that his company's game is going to be rejected by Apple over its drug-dealing theme.

As readers may recall, this is a bit of an ongoing saga. GamePolitics reported in December, 2008 that A-steroids had renamed the game, originally called DrugLords, in an effort to avoid an App Store ban. A few days later, an Englishwoman who lost her daughter to heroin abuse called upon Apple to ban the game, whatever its title.

Apparently the issue is still up in the air, based on an e-mail GamePolitics received today from Andrey Podoprigora, Head of Studio for A-steroids:

We have recently released our first game on the AppStore - Underworld: SweetDeal. The game was previously known as DrugLords, location-based MMO about dirty trade...

This week, we have submitted the game in it's original drug-trade setting to the AppStore. We were hoping that after the iPhone 3.0 came out with it's parental controls improved, there is a chance for the game to finally come through.

Now, we have got an update from Apple, saying they require "unexpected additional time for review". Which is sort of bad because we are already familiar with responses like that - in December, 2008 this led to months of silence and then ended up as a reject. Would be sad if it means nothing changes in Apple's app reviewing policy.

The Canadian province of Prince Edward Island is currently home to an office of Longtail Studios, a development house started by Ubisoft co-founder Gerard Guillemot.

But, as reported by CBC, the firm is apparently relocating to Nova Scotia. Last week all 23 employees were offered comparable positions in a proposed new location in Halifax. P.E.I., however, is not giving Longtail up without a fight.

Innovation Minister Allan Campbell told CBC:

I am concerned with the possible loss of these positions on P.E.I. I've asked staff in my department to put together a package that is attractive to the company and that incites them to remain here on P.E.I.

Why Nova Scotia in particular has targeted this particular company, I'm not sure about that.

A package of tax breaks and subsidies which P.E.I. previously granted to Longtail expires later this year. Campbell said that talks aimed at keeping the developer in the province have been ongoing.

Longtail, which primarily develops games for mobile platforms, is based in New York City. According to its website, the developer also has maintains an office in Quebec City.

The ESA & ESRB (which is owned by ESA) have recently begun a push to bring the videogame industry's content rating system to that wild frontier of gaming known as the iTunes App Store.

The ESA plan has now received support from a rather unexpected source.

Dr. David Walsh of the National Institute on Media & the Family has weighed in with an endorsement of ESA boss Mike Gallagher's offer to have the ESRB rate App Store games. In a statement released late on Friday, Walsh said:

Michael Gallagher deserves considerable credit for his foresight in identifying the latest challenge for parents, the gaming industry and the ESRB. As gaming technology continues to advance and games become more accessible via online downloads and phone applications, parents will need new tools to keep inappropriate games out of their kids’ hands.

 

Gallagher took a great first step offering to work with Apple to ensure inappropriate content does not make its way into kids’ lives. I hope Apple accepts his offer and reaches out to other organizations like the ESRB and non-industry groups who are concerned about this issue and can offer valuable insight.

GP: As GamePolitics reported last September,  the National Institute on Media & the Family was the recipient of a $50,000 grant from the ESA Foundation.

While stories of striking App Store gold abound, a successful iPhone developer writes that the market is over-hyped and under-performing.

Using his STROMCODE blog as a platform, developer Rick Strom complains that even some best-selling apps generate very little return for their creators:

With two apps on the [Top 100] paid charts, one would assume I’m rolling in dough... 

The reality is much more startling.  In order [for Strom's Zen Jar app] to place #34 on the social networking charts, you need 30-35 downloads a day.  At the standard app store pricing of .99, and after Apple takes its cut, that means your app needs to bring in a little over $20 a day to chart at that position... 

 

So what does this all mean?  Well keep in mind there are over 36,000 apps in the app store.  If the apps on the category charts are doing those sorts of numbers, what do you think the rest of them are doing?

Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.   The aren’t selling at all...

 

The app store isn’t a sane marketplace at all, any more than the lottery is...  

A social game for web-capable mobile phones parodies rogue financier Bernie Madoff's long-running Ponzi scheme, reports CNNmoney.

Made Off, available from publisher Cellufun, allows players to create virtual scams of their owns, promising other players investment returns of up to 20%. Player need to continually attract new "investors" in order to pay back the older ones, lest their Ponzi scheme collapse. No real money is involved. Instead, players trade "cellupoints."

Cellufun CEO Neil Edwards, who says his game pokes fun at the jailed Madoff, not his victims, told CNN/money that Made Off has an educational component:

When your fund goes broke, you go, 'Holy crap, I didn't invite enough people... There is a lot of misconception and confusion on what happened. People don't really understand a Ponzi scheme."

A blurb on the game's website describes the action:

Play as a slimy Fund Manager, a savvy Investor, or both. The game will end without warning when the Feds finally crack down on the Cellufun community, and people managing Funds will get to keep all the Cellupoints invested in them. Investors will keep all the Cellupoints they've acquired through interest payments as well. And we'll give trophies to those who have "made off" with the most profits...

Mobile game makers missed a chance to get their issues on the Federal Trade Commission's radar, according to a telecommunications lawyer who tracks game issues.

Writing for Gamasutra, Steve Augustino (left) notes that a just-issued FTC report, Beyond Voice: Mapping the Mobile Marketplace, devotes but a single paragraph - out of 54 pages - to mobile gaming. The report is the result of a two day FTC town hall conference held in May, 2008.

From Augustino's article:

There is no discussion of app stores, of the impact of the carrier deck, of other handsets as gaming platforms... of innovative games taking advantage of location capabilities of phones, or any other significant development in the mobile gaming marketplace.

There also was no discussion of the PSP, DS or DSi and the implications that wi-fi and VoIP create... It’s too bad, for this would have been a good opportunity to paint a fuller picture of the games industry and also could have been a vehicle for addressing impediments to the further growth of the platform.

Augustino doesn't blame government bureaucrats for the oversight. Instead, he faults the mobile game industry for failing to take the initiative. He told GamePolitics:

I do not fault the FTC. They organized this conference based on the entities that they knew about or that expressed an interest in participating.  My point is that the games industry is being silent and that the silence could harm them.  Too much of what the industry does is defensive... The industry cannot win if it always plays defense. 

 

I think the FTC "Mapping the Mobile Marketplace" is an example of a missed opportunity for the industry to discuss its successes and to present a different image to the policy makers.

A Japanese finance minister who appeared to be drunk and sleepy during a G7 press conference earlier this month is the subject a new parody game for mobile phones.

As reported by the Telegraph, Shoichi Nakagawa delivered the less-than-stellar performance at left during G7 in Rome:

Now [Nakagawa] has become the latest target of Japan's mischievous game industry. Players are invited to wake a likeness of Mr Nakagawa as he fields questions at a press conference and then let him nap to increase his energy reserves.

Players gain points in "Drowsy Presser by Drugged Minister" if they boost Mr Nakagawa's "support rating" by having him answer journalists' questions. But if the minister is caught sleeping by journalists, he falls off his chair and the game is over.

From the Consider the Source Dept:

Gossip mag The Star reports that President Barack Obama indulges in mobile phone gaming apps:

During his first days in office, President Obama laid down the law — Hands off my BlackBerry! But his insistence on keeping it wasn't just because he wanted to stay in touch with family and friends. Turns out the Prez is hooked on playing the mobile game BrickBreaker!

"He plays to unwind," a confidante reveals. "Every night before bed, he gives it a few minutes."

And he's hardly all thumbs.

"His high score is around 15,000!"

Via: GameCulture

With an increasing emphasis on fantasy entertainment provided by mobile phone games, comic books and TV, there is some hope that radicalism will become a less attractive path for Islamic youth.

Wael El-Zanaty, an exec with the Egyptian firm behind cell phone game Bab el-Hara, told the Associated Press:

The best thing about this game is that this is something that Arabs can relate to. It’s about part of [Arab] history — the resistance to the French occupation [of Syria]... We wanted something that reflected our culture... developed with an Arab perspective.

The AP explains:

The Arab world’s private sector is leading a push to provide Muslim and Arab youth with homegrown heroes, as a bulwark against the trend toward radical Islam throughout the Middle East.

Clearly, superheroes won’t offset all the problems that stoke radicalism — anger at corrupt Arab regimes and at Israel over its treatment of Palestinians — but El-Zanaty said he hoped these pop culture characters could give young people a positive image of themselves as Arabs.

Meanwhile, Naif al-Mutawa, publisher of The 99 comic book superhero series, offered his view on how media can help deliver positive role models for Arab youth:

Our [Islamic] story has become [more] about what not to do, than about what to do. I wanted to … go back to the same sources others have pulled out a lot of negative ideas from, and pull out positive, tolerant, multicultural, accepting ideas.

I’m not trying to sell religion here. I’m trying to sell the idea that at the values level, we’re all the same...’  I really think that we [Arabs] limit ourselves with this catastrophic thinking that the world is controlled by others and there is nothing we can do. I think this is rubbish.

Mobile phone apps may be the ideal platform upon which to deliver the message, said Ayman Shoukry of the Good News Group:

[In Egypt alone] there are 40 million mobiles. We don’t have 40 million [other types of] devices anywhere in Egypt."

Government financial incentives for video game production are an increasingly frequent topic of conversation among state officials who are seeking to attract and retain employers.

In Connecticut, however, a successful game developer worries that belt-tightening legislators may do away with a tax break already in place.

Brandon Curiel (left), president of mobile game developer Venan, told local TV station WFSB-3 that losing the tax break will prevent his firm from expanding:

I think every business owner sees what's going on [with the recession] and thinks, ‘When is this going to ripple through and hit me? So far, it hasn’t.

Everyone recognized how important the tax credit program and how beneficial it is, and how do we get that communicated to the Legislature?

Venan's game portfolio includes Monopoly for EA Mobile and Ninjatown for Southpeak Interactive. Curiel added that he hopes to move into developing for the Wii.

Last week, GamePolitics reported that a soon-to-be-released drug dealing game for the iPhone had been renamed in an apparent effort to win App Store approval. Drug Lords, developed by a-steroids, had its name changed to the less offensive Underworld.

Despite new title, the mother of a British heroin user wants the game banned, according to UK tabloid the Daily Star. Thelma Packard's daughter Amy has been in a coma for seven years after dabbling with heroin as a 17-year-old. Mrs. Packard told the newspaper:

My daughter’s life has been ruined by drugs. If this game is allowed to come out, impressionable kids will play it and Amy’s mistake will be repeated over and over again. Youngsters like Amy are exactly the people who download and play games like this on their mobiles.

 

I just want to help other families avoid the nightmare that’s wrecked mine.

What's in a name?

App Store approval, perhaps.

Pocket Gamer UK reports that Drug Lords, a drug dealing sim for the iPhone, has been renamed Underworld by its developer, a-steroids.

The move is apparently by way of not alarming the folks who run the App Store. From Pocket Gamer:

a-steroids contacted us to announce the game has finally been submitted to the App Store. Assuming approval, you should be able to start hawking your illicit narcotics sometime in December. But, in order to grease the wheels, the game has undergone rebranding. So, like a GTA hot car respray, it's goodnight Drug Lords, good morning Underworld. The name is less controversial and certainly more App Store friendly.

The game sets you up a small-time drug pusher, selling your stash on the local street corner to other players, and even makes use of the iPhone's GPS functionality, meaning you'll be wheelin' and dealing from your realworld local street corner... the map screen now includes data on pushers in your local vicinity...

a-steroids notes on its website that the game will be free. But, when it comes to drug dealing, isn't the first one always free?