Valve’s Steam Link app (beta) was approved earlier this week for Android, but also surprisingly rejected on iOS by Apple.
Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, Phil Schiller, replied in an email to several customers who complained about this decision.
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Thank you for your email and being a customer of Apple products and the App Store.
We care deeply about bringing great games to all of our users on the App Store. We would love for Valve’s games and services to be on iOS and AppleTV.
Unfortunately, the review team found that Valve’s Steam iOS app, as currently submitted, violates a number of guidelines around user generated content, in-app purchases, content codes, etc. We’ve discussed these issues with Valve and will continue to work with them to help bring the Steam experience to iOS and AppleTV in a way that complies with the store’s guidelines.
We put great effort into creating an App Store that provides the very best experience for everyone. We have clear guidelines that all developers must follow in order to ensure the App Store is a safe place for all users and a fair opportunity for all developers.
Sincerely,
Phil
Those customers have now created a Change.org petition to try and make Apple reconsider the choice. For their part, Valve released the following statement upon receiving notice of the Steam Link app being rejected on iOS.
On Monday, May 7th, Apple approved the Steam Link app for release. On Wednesday, May 9th, Valve released news of the app. The following morning, Apple revoked its approval citing business conflicts with app guidelines that had allegedly not been realized by the original review team.
Valve appealed, explaining the Steam Link app simply functions as a LAN-based remote desktop similar to numerous remote desktop applications already available on the App Store. Ultimately, that appeal was denied leaving the Steam Link app for iOS blocked from release. The team here spent many hours on this project and the approval process, so we’re clearly disappointed. But we hope Apple will reconsider in the future.
We’ll keep you updated should there be any news.
