Wheels of Aurelia dev says Apple undermining value and sustainability of games as it looks to delist title

• Santa Ragione has criticised Apple for removing a fully functional game with no clear justification.
• Wheels of Aurelia to be pulled from the App Store on July 25th despite denied appeals.
• The game is free to download for the next 10 days before its scheduled removal.

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Wheels of Aurelia developer Santa Ragione has accused Apple of devaluing games as cultural and artistic works after the tech giant stated its plans to remove the 2016 visual novel from the App Store.

The developer took to Bluesky to share that Wheels of Aurelia will be removed from the App Store on July 25th, 2025, following denied appeals despite an extended grace period. 

In response, the studio is offering the game as a free download for the next 10 days to reach more players before its removal.

“Despite multiple appeals and sincere efforts to seek clarification, Apple has not provided clear justification for this removal, citing only their policy to remove apps deemed ‘obsolete’ or ‘outdated,’ despite the game being fully functional and compliant with current technical standard(s),” the developer explained in a post. 

“We firmly believe that removing fully functional artistic works simply due to infrequent updates undermines the value and sustainability of games as cultural and artistic products. 

“Like books, films, and music albums, video games represent complete creative works that do not inherently require continual updates beyond maintaining basic functionality.”

They added: “This ‘obsoletion’ policy further reinforces a vision that does not recognise games as an art form. It is a view that, unfortunately, is becoming increasingly common across the industry. In this context, it is hard to imagine how we could ever thrive within Apple’s ecosystem.”

App monitoring 

Apple’s developer policy states it is actively removing outdated, non-functional, or non-compliant apps across all App Store categories.

“Developers of apps that have not been updated within the last three years and fail to meet a minimal download threshold — meaning the app has not been downloaded at all or extremely few times during a rolling 12 month period — receive an email notifying them that their app has been identified for possible removal from the App Store,” Apple wrote. 

If an issue is found with an app, Apple said it will notify the developer and give 90 days to submit an update, except for apps that crash on launch, which are removed immediately.