“Giant Cock” Excluded from Apple’s App Store

Yesterday, in San Francisco, I talked to one of the many foreign attendees at the Game Developers Conference. He told me about a game he had developed, which featured a giant rooster.

In the developer’s native language, the word for “rooster” is similar to the English word “cock”, so he called the game “Giant Cock” and submitted it to Apple’s App Store. Apple rejected the game without explanation.

The developer thought that perhaps “Giant” was the problem, so he resubmitted it with the name “Epic Cock”. Again, it was rejected.

This time, however, Apple apparently suspected that there was a foreign-language issue. Apple explained the rejection by directing the developer to the “Other” section of the Wikipedia entry for “cock”, which explains that “cock” is a colloquial, profane vulgarism for “penis”. He then understood that a “giant cock” wasn’t what he thought it was.

Bottom line: If you need to localize software, an agreement or any other work product, retain an expert who can help you do so properly and avoid cultural embarrassment.

Dana H. Shultz, Attorney at Law  +1 510 547-0545  dana [at] danashultz [dot] com
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