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Cabel Sasser

A short story. We once submitted Untitled Goose Game to the Mac App Store. It was rejected by the reviewer because they thought you couldn’t skip the credits. (?!?) We explained that you could skip the credits by holding space. It was then rejected for something else and at that point we just gave up and never bothered to resubmit. Fin

74 comments
Miss Hap

@stefan @cabel I was going to say, I thought they were going to reject it for being untitled.

David Senate

@cabel so it won’t be ever an iOS version 😞

Erik Holten

@david_senate

I'm not up to date in these matters, but don't believe those amount to the same thing. @cabel

Óscar Morales Vivó

@cabel Somehow, Apple created the HOA of software.

Jack

@MyLittleMetroid @cabel @film_girl The brown fence in the garden is supposed to be white.

Ernie Smith

@cabel This is a microcosm as to why Mac gaming is so terrible compared to Windows TBH

Kévin ⏚

@ernie @cabel I beg to differ. The universe of Mac Gaming is great, that's why I pay for a remote windows machine to stream games on my Mac

Ernie Smith

@kc @cabel I do the opposite. I leave my i9 16-inch MBP booted in Windows most of the time, basically so I can use Steam and Xbox Game Pass; then I remote into my M1 Macbook Air using Jump Desktop to do everything else.

Ernie Smith

@kc @cabel I like to think of it as the cheap person’s 16-inch M1.

the hatter

@ernie @cabel Do people buy games from the windows store ? Looks like UGG is available for both platforms on steam. I think Mac's gaming issues are much more about apple's lack of prioritising it in hardware and APIs, not an app platform that's a very minor part of most mac users' experience.

Ernie Smith

@hatter @cabel Xbox Game Pass is based on the same technology as the Windows Store if I’m right, and Xbox Game Pass is an awesome way to enjoy a bunch of games for cheap, so yes.

Ernie Smith

@hatter @cabel The lack of API support for Vulkan and OpenGL most certainly plays a role as well, but Apple has been bad at giving notable developers proper support as well.

RAMΞNJVNKIΞ🍜

@hatter @ernie @cabel By Windows, I imagine they mean Steam.

Though Gamepass runs through the Windows Store, as do Xbox Play Anywhere titles that work on Xbox consoles and Windows.

I have a few Forza games from the Windows Store because they were not on Steam at the time.

Also Minecraft goes through the Windows Store.

Ernie Smith

@RamenJunkie @hatter @cabel There is no need to interpret what I said I literally explained it in my reply to him

Ernie Smith

@RamenJunkie @hatter @cabel Also: I think Apple could score some gamer points by working with Steam on bringing Proton to the Mac in a tangible way.

noodle

@ernie @cabel Mac gaming is great. Marathon and Escape Velocity particularly.

Ken

@cabel omg what monsters 👹

Makes one wonder how many similar stories are out there… 😔

Aaron :apple_inc: :isles:

@cabel @drahardja I swear, the current App Review system is beyond broken.

It worked great when the App Store was 1-3 years old but it cannot sustain itself given the deluge of apps being submitted. There is no good way in the current system to distinguish between good apps, scammers, copycats, and nonsense.

I really wish the entire App Review process was torn down and rebuilt from the ground up.

PS: My partner and I LOVED Untitled Goose Game. Even now, we'll still randomly HONK at each other. 🤣

@cabel @drahardja I swear, the current App Review system is beyond broken.

It worked great when the App Store was 1-3 years old but it cannot sustain itself given the deluge of apps being submitted. There is no good way in the current system to distinguish between good apps, scammers, copycats, and nonsense.

Rich Felker

@Aaron @cabel @drahardja A variant on the theme of garbage tech companies designing things that obviously need moderation/curation and not being willing to pay people to do that (despite taking a cut so large they could afford a spectacular team to do it).

Aaron :apple_inc: :isles:

@dalias @cabel @drahardja I think for a long time, Apple did have that large team. I heard stories all the time of App Review taking weeks, then months as time went on. I sincerely think Apple's team was hand-reviewing every app.

Wonderful in practice, terrible at scale.

So what does Apple do? Automate X% of the process where X = > 50% of what a human would do. This speeds things up greatly, but at the expense of nonsense like Cabel mentions.

IMO under the current system, no amount of tinkering can fix ti all. A full, structural change is needed to make review times realistic but also a positive process for all.

@dalias @cabel @drahardja I think for a long time, Apple did have that large team. I heard stories all the time of App Review taking weeks, then months as time went on. I sincerely think Apple's team was hand-reviewing every app.

Wonderful in practice, terrible at scale.

So what does Apple do? Automate X% of the process where X = > 50% of what a human would do. This speeds things up greatly, but at the expense of nonsense like Cabel mentions.

Rich Felker

@Aaron @cabel @drahardja Taking weeks means they didn't have a large team. Rather an overloaded small team attempting to do detailed review.

Dave Rahardja (he/him)

@dalias @Aaron @cabel IMO the fundamental problem is that Apple sees App Store review as a cost center first and foremost, a way to gatekeep undesirable apps from reaching users second, and a developer gateway a distant third.

If developer satisfaction were important, Apple would brag about its “DevSat” as well as its “Customer Sat” figures.

Aaron :apple_inc: :isles:

@drahardja @dalias @cabel YES! THAT!

Meanwhile without devs, the iOS ecosystem would be down to stock apps and trash from get-rich-quick schemes. That 30% cut would dry up real quick.

I love Apple, but god they have such a one-sided relationship with devs.

njvack

@Aaron @cabel @drahardja There’s no foolproof way of distinguishing good stuff from crap, but “this is a well-known indie game already available on several other platforms” should probably trigger the “let’s make sure it’s not a third-party ripping off the real publisher and then release it” reflex

It’s… not like Apple is unaware of the existence of Panic in general

Aaron :apple_inc: :isles:

@njvack @cabel @drahardja Not foolproof, but what Cabel describes is stupid. Apple should have opened a dialogue with him / Panic to understand the issue and work it out. Solves a ton of problems.

I also think Apple needs to create a “Trusted Dev" system that allows known good devs with a LONG track record to gain expedited review.

pgcd

@cabel <"House House" is not a proper company name>

Gik :prami:

@cabel Apple working on their Suntitled Moose Game confirmed.

Christina Warren

@chockenberry @cabel lol. Beautiful but with nothing to do but video! It’s so sad! So much potential just sitting there. No games anyone wants to play and no ML frameworks that don’t have to be rewritten specifically for it (CoreML does not count and does not matter). For YEARS I’ve been talking about how the Apple/Nvidia war was a huge problem b/c of CUDA’s dominance in AI/ML and had tons of people telling me I was wrong and an idiot. Spoiler: I wasn’t and I’m not.

Caspar Fairhall

@film_girl @chockenberry @cabel Absolutely spot on. It’s a really bizarre blind spot.

Fogmeister

@cabel @cocoaphony

Wait… so they played all the way through to the credits before rejecting it?!?!? Wat?!

Fabio Bracht

@Fogmeister @cabel @cocoaphony When a developer submits an app for review, they are required to provide easy access (almost like “cheats”) to certain features the reviewer is required to look at.

Fun fact: age ratings for movies work similarly. They don’t watch the entire movie. They require the studio to answer a few questions — is there red blood and gore? how many swear words? etc. — and to submit the timestamp for the most problematic scene(s). The review is based on that. If the studio lies/hides a problematic scene, there are repercussions.

At least I heard this is how it works.

@Fogmeister @cabel @cocoaphony When a developer submits an app for review, they are required to provide easy access (almost like “cheats”) to certain features the reviewer is required to look at.

Fun fact: age ratings for movies work similarly. They don’t watch the entire movie. They require the studio to answer a few questions — is there red blood and gore? how many swear words? etc. — and to submit the timestamp for the most problematic scene(s). The review is based on that. If the studio lies/hides...

Fogmeister

@bracht ah interesting. I’ve made many apps but never games or that sort of content so it kind of makes sense. 👍🏻

Rawwwb

@cabel The Mac App Store rejected one of my games because the reviewer noticed that certain inputs "don't work". They do work, though, just not until the end of the 30-second tutorial that runs the first time someone opens the game. ~_~

Michael Love

@cabel Really looking forward to seeing Panic's take on an App Store tomorrow.

geo_bot

@cabel how annoyed could you be about a goose causing mischief, of they want to be obnoxious about ui technicalities they can go away

Casper 👻

@cabel
 doesn’t want games unless it’s the mostly cheesy type on Arcade.

Glyph

@cabel Really hopeful that regulators will start smacking down Apple and forcing them to allow e.g. Epic and Valve onto iOS so there's a backstop for inanities like this on more platforms than the mac.

I loved Untitled Goose Game and I'm glad I got it through Valve and not Apple since I played it with my kid half on a Mac and half on a Steam Deck.

Adrian Nier

@cabel It should be in Apple’s own best interest to give long-standing, award-winning, developers special entitlements and experienced reviewers to bring quality titles to the Mac App Store.

Would we have these issues if Eddy Cue grew up with Audion or Phil Schiller actually read every article by @gruber escalated to him?

Martin Dufort

@cabel Excellent histoire. Is that why you no longer go the Mac AppStore route?

Davey Craney

@cabel This is why I find all the

“no no no… Apple is serious about gaming THIS TIME”

stories about Arcade, and now their upcoming VR headset so hilarious. They just don’t care enough about games to make a compelling platform.

Netflix is *killing* arcade with the calibre of the titles on iOS. And it’s only a value add to their streaming!

Jari Lehtinen

@cabel Sooooo when is Untitled Goose Game 2 coming out? ☺️

deeje

@cabel always wanted to try that game <sigh/>

Jack Wellborn

@cabel I sometimes think about how the first Genius Bars worked because they were filled with people enthusiastic about Apple and the Mac, and how crazy it is that neither the App Store or Feedback seem to similarly leverage the Apple community.

Conor

@cabel short story please add it to Mac App Store.

Robert

@cabel and just like that, I bought it on Switch instead. Nice job, App Store Reviewer.

yakkoj 🦊

@cabel yet one more data point in my totally reasonable attitude of hating App Store with every fiber of my being

They're obviously using a Corporate version of the BOFH Excuse Calendar and rejecting the submission that way.

Davide Metrangolo

@cabel A gem of pur times. Loved every quack of it. 🤟

Ponderus

@cabel played it on Switch. Loved it, my kids love it, it has worked it's way into everyday life. Thanks for a great game

Adam Eccles

@cabel this is my daughters absolute favourite game. (Nintendo switch) and has spawned a whole love of geese. She and I appreciate the effort. She also would love a sequel 🙏🏻☺️

Rabbit Cohen

@cabel So what I'm hearing here is that Apple does not want my money.

NV Ozmus

@BathysphereHat Apple wants all of your money but only how they tell you to spend it

Sku_te

@cabel I presume there is Mac on Steam though?

Matthaus Woolard

@cabel I believe apple are now suggesting that you request they call you to resolve miss understandings, rather than what seems to be slow async coms.

Floon

@cabel Their loss, UGG rocks.

Apple have always been a pain to work with, for game developers, but interestingly for different reasons through the years. Up to MacOS 7, the hardware was just catastrophically slow. During PowerPC, the hardware was better but the OS was still slow. WIth OSX and Intel, they tried several times to be better and always step on their own feet with stupid rules. Now with iOS, they act like they're the only game in town.

Almost as bad as launching a game in China.

AT-AT Assault :verifiedtrans:

@cabel

You are far from the first person I've read of where they couldn't get their Mac/iOS app/update-to-app approved because the reviewer is fucking stupid.

It's like Apple hates free money.

Scott Kyle

@cabel This deeply upsets me because you’re Panic FFS. When I submitted my first Mac app back in 2014, it got stuck in review purgatory (not approved or denied) for weeks. They would not help me when I called, but luckily as a former employee I was able to back channel through someone still working there to get it unstuck.

Patrick Smith

@cabel The community should make a game called Untitled App Store Rejection. You try to submit your game to the App Store and keep getting nonsense rejections. It could be powered by Bing’s Sydney.

Dale Price

@cabel Ah yes, the real and very much published App Store Guideline 618.π.1 - “games must have skippable credits for you and unskippable credits for Apple Arcade”

How could you miss that, it’s right after “apps must not give the geese around Apple Park any ideas or promote the violation of ’no geese’ signs.”

Nick Richards

@cabel What was the "else" it was rejected for?

> It was then rejected for something else

Cameron Mulder

@cabel apple needs to investigate this and fire someone.

Григорий Клюшников

Imagine what the world would be like if you could just skip the iOS app store the same way.

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