You can find places to buy weed on the app store. You can rate different strains of weed. You can download apps that teach you more about marijuana, or get apps that will give you various cosmetic weed changes to your phone. You can even roll fake joints. You can't, however, download a game where you grow marijuana.
At least, not this specific game. Weed Firm, a popular app that allowed players to experience "the vicious and lawless career of Mr. Ted Growing," was recently pulled from the app store according to the developers, Manitoba Games.
"This was entirely Apple's decision, not ours," Manitoba Games wrote on Weed Firm's web page. "We guess the problem was that the game was just too good and got to number one in All Categories, since there are certainly a great number of weed based apps still available, as well as games promoting other so-called 'illegal activities' such as shooting people, crashing cars and throwing birds at buildings."
Other games, such as Weed Farmer and Weed Tycoon, remain active on the app store for now—but these games weren't as popular or as well-rated as Weed Firm was.
The developers say they're going to bring the game back, with some alterations.
"The Apple version might need to be censored a bit to comply with Apple's strictest requirement since they are going to be looking very attentively at what we submit from now on," they say.
The Android version of the game—which you can see in action in the footage above—was also recently pulled, but it had nothing to do with Google's restrictions, Manitoba Games say. Instead, the unrelated problem has to do with their publisher.
"We will endeavor to make it as censorship free as possible while assigning the highest maturity rating to the game. We do not want kids playing Weed Firm, but we firmly believe that adults should have a choice to do whatever the hell they want as long as they are not hurting anybody in the process."
In the past, Apple's guidelines for apps have noted that they keep an eye out for kids, as many parents don't set up parental controls. They also vaguely say that they reject apps for content that they believe is "over the line." This includes apps that tackle sensitive subjects, such as sex.
We've contacted both Manitoba Games and Apple and will update this story if we hear back.