The good news to report to you is that Fish Lake Adventure is now in the app store for iPad. All of you who have asked for our game that teaches fractions to be available for iPad, here it is! It also teaches Ojibwe history and culture.
Let me tell you why our game is delayed ….
Maybe you missed our Facebook Live / Instagram Live/ YouTube where even Maria, who is normally the calm one, was swearing. I do admit I did more swearing than her.
Here is what happened …. we submitted the game to the app store and it took weeks to hear from them, when it is usually less than 24 hours. Then they said our game had been denied due to “pornography or gratuitous violence” and we were like “Wait, what?” At first we thought somehow our app must have been hacked because we were 100% sure there was no pornography or gratuitous violence in it. This game has been used by thousands of kids in schools in three countries. We think someone would have noticed.
The initial rating we had selected as for everyone. I‘d like to point out that this is the exact rating we received in the Microsoft Store, where you can download our game for Windows.
In the app store, we had said our game was appropriate for “everyone” which is ages 4 and up. Dennis thought about the people who said their four-year-old was traumatized by Bambi where the mother deer got shot and decided that maybe that was a problem. Besides, four-year-olds aren’t learning fractions anyway, so he re-submitted it for the next category, age 9+ AND IT WAS TURNED DOWN BECAUSE IT INCLUDED HUNTING!!
This time, we submitted an appeal, pointed out that it was an educational game that taught math in a historical context, that the Ojibwe (and other tribes, for that matter) lived by hunting and fishing. Apple refused to budge and in the end we were able to get Fish Lake Adventure accepted in the app store but NOT with the “made for children” designation and with a rating of age 12 and up because – hunting.
Some people have said that is because California is run by crazy liberals, which is a bit extreme since we live in California and we actually made the game – with consultation and help from people in North Dakota, and thank you very much.
Even though I was very annoyed – hence the swearing – I have to see Apple’s point of view
I know what their problem is – it’s parents who want to present their children with a sanitized view of the world. I have actually met people who asked me if we couldn’t have a version of Fish Lake or Spirit Lake , “Where the Native Americans made friends with the animals instead of eating them?”
Maria is SO much better at these interactions than me. Although I have gotten professional enough that I do not say what I am really thinking, which is :
“Are you ###ing kidding me?!”
I do tend to respond with,
“Do you know what the word ‘history’ means?”
It’s easier for Apple to rate our game as 12+ than to have these moms (and I hate to say it, because Maria and I, between the two of us, are moms to seven children, but it is has always been moms) say,
I had parental controls enabled on my child’s iPad and yet they were able to play this game where they speared fish and hunted deer!
To me, it’s insane because I know so many kids under 12 in the Midwest and Great Plains states who have actually hunted deer. As for fishing, I am sure my grandfather took me by the time I was 7. The first fishing trip we took our girls on they were ages 3, 4 and 8. They went bird hunting with their dad about the same age.
I guess we should be happy with the compromise, because I am sure if psycho moms had their way we wouldn’t be able to have Fish Lake Adventure in the app store at all.
I’m sure Maria is not happy with me labeling “potential customers” psycho moms but seriously, history is what happened, whether you like it or not.