Trump VS The World The game Apple rejected because it’s defamatory, offensive and mean-spirited! also known as: A story of failure Available for Android | iOS Description: The funniest and politically most incorrect game ever! Becoming president ain't easy! Help Donald Trump to smash and crash as many (self-declared) enemies as possible while you jump and run on his imaginary wall. How far can you get in the race for the White House before you inevitably fail? Developer: Fortyfour Games Publisher and Facebook Page: Indie Plexus****** If you are interested in some background information regarding this game just keep reading: THE DEVELOPMENT AND RELEASE OF THE GAME Spoiler: Expand First of all, this is my first game ever and it basically is my first attempt as an independent to find out how the game industry works. As you already saw, the game is highly inspired by Ball Jump, a game made by one of our fellow members, and for sure a game I love and admire. I approached the idea and concept of copying because it is recommended by many industry professionals to get your feet wet. After the release of Ball Jump's first successful clone (Damn Daniel) I knew I had to make a version with Trump as the character in it and my idea was basically to take the genre to the next level when it comes to memes. Memes are copied again and again and since Trump is a victim of thousands if not millions of memes and Damn Daniel was already based on a meme, it just made sense. I copied the clone that was based on a meme and put in tons of graphics and sounds based on other memes (Trump related), added my personal point of view regarding the phenomenon that is Trump, my artistic knowledge from my design, animation and film background and put everything in my Buildbox blender: Trump VS The World was born! Before you start flaming and point out how this is all pretty lame because it probably is, I did add a new element to make it more interesting though. Specifically a game-play element: the enemies that Trump destroys on his way to the White House while running on his imaginary wall. But that's pretty it. I of course built the game from scratch (no template or original source code was used) and my goal was to finish the game within 2 weeks which unfortunately was not the case and at the end I invested 3 weeks in total + whatever I lost in my battle with Apple (but I get to this part later). On the way, I had to find out how to implement Heyzap Mediation which you can find the tutorials I shared here on the forum. And as with everything else, I'm trying now all on my own to figure out how the hell does the other part work. Which one? The beast called marketing. I admit, I still have no clue how the game industry works and behaves, even though I found out already several things and the most important one is probably that my game will not make a single dime! I'm already two weeks in with posting on facebook and youtube, plus I wrote over 200 news and reviews related sites. I tried to convince my friends to help me with the task, but they don't even play games in their free time. Until now, I got 30 downloads on Android and 50 on iOS and that's it. Nobody plays the game. From the ads I barely made 8 dollars (most of it with the Android version) that I can't even claim because the minimum monthly pay-outs are much higher. It definitely is not a good idea to use several ad networks with a not successful game because you'll have the revenue split all over the place. Starting small would be a much better approach. APPLE'S REJECTION Spoiler: Expand Trump VS The World is a satire game that criticizes the republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as well as his political campaign. It reflects and questions Trump’s actions in an intelligent and humoristic way. The main character is a primate-like Trump who runs and jumps on his alleged self-building wall while he destroys different stereotyped enemies taken from Trump’s hate speeches. The game is made completely with cartoon graphics but keeps a strong resemblance to Trump’s presidential campaign: he attacks everybody else, hence the world. However, Apple claims they do not allow satirical games in their App Store and rejected Trump VS The World because it’s defamatory, offensive and mean-spirited. After the first rejection, a quick Google search exposed that our game was not the only one to be rejected (see here), even though in general Apple tends to approve this kind of games. Dump Trump, Trump Punch or Trump On The Run were all accepted without any problems and some suggest an even more violent language. It seems to be a question of luck to pass the inconsistency of Apple’s approval or maybe it all depends on whom the satire is applied to. According to Apple, the main problem with Trump VS The World is the stereotyped enemies. For example, we can’t use a Mexican making a siesta in front of a cactus or Barack Obama, as enemies in the game. As a consequence of this censorship, the iOS version of Trump VS The World features in the final version bunnies as enemies instead of the original ones. The idea was that even cute little bunnies are a danger and have to be eliminated in Trump’s universe. Funny enough, this wasn’t the end of the story and Apple kept rejecting the game. Now because both, the game and the App Store description, included a text explaining why the iOS version presented bunnies as enemies. And in the end, Apple even made us change the design of the title because ‘The Bunny Edition’ was subtly implemented like a ‘Censored’ sign. Apple definitely does not support freedom of speech when it comes to their own brand, things they don’t agree with or don’t understand. I lost a total of 3 weeks with additional changes and waiting for the approval from Apple. An experience I don't wish anybody else. As an artist I feel pretty much abused in my expression and freedom of speech. And the more I think about, the more I dislike Apple in this regard. They obviously do not have the same politics regarding books or movies, because satire is all over their store. Only when it comes to games they seem to be very very picky or better said very inconsequent. A shame that Apple officially promotes these values but do not apply them by themselves. I know that they can do whatever they want with their App Store because they are a private company, but I think it is important for us developers and even us gamers that we are not restricted in any way. But there is unfortunately no way to change this as we are talking David VS Goliath here. I do have contact with some other developers that experienced similar rejections and we are considering going to the press, but I'm pretty sure it does not move a single stone. CONCLUSION Spoiler: Expand I'm posting all this bla bla bla because I hope for a more open community. I'm convinced that the principle "sharing is caring" will get us further and because information shouldn't be available at a cost. We need to hear different stories (of failure and success) to keep learning from each other in order to succeed. A little idea I have in my small (socialist) mind, which unfortunately completely contrasts the reality we are in. But that's just how I am and see things, sorry if I bothered you with this post.
haha u finally got it on ios. i cant seem to find the game when i search for "trump" in the playstore. I wonder why? also omg there is soo many trump apps. BTW, you emailed 200 website, how did it go? did any of them got featured? Dont lie about 30 android download, u have more then a hundred.
Haha, but from all installs only 34 are left... From the websites I wrote asking for a review I got until now 1 "news article" on vandals net. See here for the link: https://www.facebook.com/indieplexus/posts/191128457954163 I didn't see any downloads afterwards even though they have supposedly a huge fanbase. It seems that most news site from the contact lists that float around the Internet are completely fake, with fake profiles and fake followers. I also got probably 20 mails back being asked if I'm interested in a paid review. They are offered between 25USD up to 150USD. And yes, my game does not appear searching for "Trump" on the Playstore. At least you have to search for Trump VS. Actually, another very interesting thing that happened is that at the beginning, at least for two weeks, I could search for the exact title and the game did NOT appear at all. It seems you are forced to do Black Hat ASO to make your game even appear.
Haha, "The most politically incorrect game" - I love it You should write few lines on Twitter and other social with the #NeverTrump tag...
In our campaign to get more downloads we stumbled on this The first time Trump reacts to a game so if you want to help spread the word just us this image on facebook or twitter. lol
Wow it seems like your advertising campaign is doing great ^^ Superb animation btw and thanks for sharing your background information !
Funny thing, Trump VS The World just got uploaded to Amazon by someone else... It seems they just take the APK and upload it there? https://www.amazon.com/MobilVersion-Trump-VS-World/dp/B01GUCQ40Q How do they change the ad networks to their own?
@Christoph I like your game and you too...you are very open and with a helping mind. I must download your game.Thanks for sharing your experience.
Wow that's a serious thing right there! If I were you I would write a dispute to Amazon that this game was stolen from you and you request it to take it down from Amazon store immediately! It is actually super easy to steal a game and make it their own. Not very nice and highly illegal too but that doesn't stop thiefs anyways... Hope BB will have something to make it harder for them.
@Ishamahes Thanks for playing. I try my best to help where I can. @trudnai yeah I already wrote Amazon but didn't get any response. Let's see what happens. The same guy has also a copy of Color Dotz, Bouncy Blocks (@Simon Crack) and Cave Jumpers (@DeadlySeriousMedia) running.
actually, there's a whole lot more bb games than that on there... they clearly read the forums to find things to steal
