Apple has rejected the Mario parody game Kill The Plumber from being published on its App Store in order to defend Nintendo’s copyright material (thanks Pocket Gamer).
Writing on the Touch Arcade forums, developer Bari Silvestre explained that Apple initially rejected Kill The Plumber as it “includes content or features that resemble a well-known third-party material, Super Mario Bros., without the necessary authorization.”
Silvestre then tried to appeal against this with a letter he wrote to Apple explaining that all of the graphics, sounds, and mechanics in Kill The Plumber are original and not stolen assets. Apple then called Silvestre to tell him that the appeal is no good and the game will still be rejected unless he was to “change everything, from the appearance to the functionality.”
In hearing this news, Silvestre pointed out the many clones of Clash of Clans that are published on the App Store, but knew it was futile. It does seem to be a harsh decision made against Silvestre considering that games like Crossy Road exist on its App Store, which is very obviously derivative of Frogger, and Castaway Paradise is a self-admitted reworking of Animal Crossingcurrently available on the App Store.
As Siliconera explained before, Kill The Plumber flips the usual set-up of Mario games on its head by having you control the enemies stopping a plumber in a red outfit from reaching the end of the level any way you can.
While it won’t be available on iOS, the Android version should be out on July 23rd, and a larger version for PC should follow sometime afterwards.
