Rejection From Apple Review - Design: Spam

Having the exact same problem. My girlfriend and I worked like crazy to get our app done in time for Halloween 4 months ago, and it has been rejected several times for "Design: Spam".

But I made all the graphics from scratch, she created all the sound/music from scratch, it has 3 levels all with different styles of gameplay.

The app has a level in it that uses the flappy bird style preset from BuildBox. Except I changed it to be a bat flying through caves and dodging worms, stalagmites, etc with all original graphics. Could this still be the reason its getting rejected for spam? If so, why would BuildBox offer presets if you cant make an approved game with them? I hope that's not the reason.

Any help would be great. Ive been on the phone with Apple 5 times and they say they're marking my case as urgent and putting it through to a senior adviser who will contact me shortly. But they've said that twice in the last 4 months and I've never been contacted once.

 

Have the problem, they reject it because of the flappy game style. Had them on the phone too. I have to change the gameplay and then they will review it again. There are too many flappy bird gameplays in the app store and they are cleaning it. Also worked months on my game with unique graphics and 100 unique levels. Have to think of a new gameplay now... Did you already fixed it?

 

Yep, same happened to our apps. In 2017 we managed to negotiate a "reduction" in the number of our apps. Then, in 2019 they started rejecting our apps again and demanded full consolidation.

Seems like whenever they decide that you violated 4.3, they put a "spammer" flag on you. Since then, every reviewer will scrutinise you extremely hard.

For us, the real issue was that they didn't apply the same rules to our competition. Full details can be found in my Medium post here. In essence, looks like only a handful of App Reviewers actually spot 4.3 issues without any flags on your file. Which is why you or your competitors may be OK for years. However, as soon as one attentive reviewer marks you as a "spammer", all the others will pay close attention to your apps. The most frustrating part is that there is no channel of communication to report your competition. So, not only can you face unreasonable rejections, but you may also find yourself in a disadvantage with respect to your competition.

I hope that Apple will rethink 4.3 guideline and its implementation. They have extremely helpful and friendly people in their Developer Relations team, but their processes need to change to fix the current frustration which so many developers face.