Apple Bans, Reinstates 'Ultimate General: Gettysburg' Amid Confederate Flag Controversy

In the last few weeks the United States has been at war with itself over the Confederate flag. With the conversation on it in full swing, Apple joined in on the debate over the flag last week when they banned the game Ultimate General: Gettysburg for its historical use of the flag. A few days later, the game was returned back to the app store when developers of Game-Labs made several late night phone calls to reinstate it.

On the Ultimate General: Gettysburg Facebook page the game developers thanked fans for helping bring back the game on the App Store.

"We would like to thank everyone who helped us over the last day by liking, sharing and commenting and spreading the news about the importance of keeping history the way it was," the page said. "We are very humbled and overwhelmed by your support and are happy to be serving you. It is purely your accomplishment and we are grateful you helped us bring our game back."

Before its reinstatement, the developers argued that Ultimate General: Gettysburg represented our history and not hate. They believe it is no different than books, movies and other games attempting to recreate history from that time period.

"Therefore, we are not going to amend the game's content and Ultimate General: Gettysburg will no longer be available on AppStore," developers said in a statement. "We really hope that Apple's decision will achieve the desired results."

It looks like they achieved the desired result. The banning of the games originally came when Apple released several statements about the Confederate flag controversy. The first was from Apple's CEO Tim Cook.

My thoughts are with the victim's families in SC.Let us honor their lives by eradicating racism & removing the symbols & words that feed it.

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) June 21, 2015

Then there was their public statement:

"We have removed apps from the App Store that use the Confederate flag in offensive or mean-spirited ways, which is in violation of our guidelines. We are not removing apps that display the Confederate flag for educational or historical uses."