After many years, Apple is loosening some of its restrictive practices.

In a recent update this week, Apple announced that game emulators can come to the App Store globally and offer downloadable games (via The Verge). This bold move from the company allows retro console emulators already on Android to bring their apps over to the iPhone and App Store. Previously, iPhone owners who wanted to run emulators on their iPhone devices needed to jailbreak their devices and find other workarounds.

Apart from its recent policy on game emulators, the company also updated its rules for super apps like Line and WeChat: mini-games and mini-apps within these apps must use HTML5, meaning they cannot be native apps and games.

Why is Apple being less restrictive about emulators and super apps? Simple: this is the company’s response to recent USA antitrust lawsuits that accused the company of trying to stomp out cloud game streaming apps.

Some Caveats…

However, this doesn’t mean that the App Store is turning into the Wild West for gaming and emulation. Here’s the exact wording from Apple:

“4.7 Mini apps, mini games, streaming games, chatbots, plug-ins, and game emulators

Apps may offer certain software that is not embedded in the binary, specifically HTML5 mini apps and mini games, streaming games, chatbots, and plug-ins. Additionally, retro game console emulator apps can offer to download games. You are responsible for all such software offered in your app, including ensuring that such software complies with these Guidelines and all applicable laws. Software that does not comply with one or more guidelines will lead to the rejection of your app. You must also ensure that the software adheres to the additional rules that follow in 4.7.1 and 4.7.5. These additional rules are important to preserve the experience that App Store customers expect, and to help ensure user safety.”

This means that companies that own the intellectual property can launch emulator apps for downloading ROMs of their own games. And since ROM files are necessary to be run on emulators to play the classic games you want, third party companies who do not own licenses to the games cannot freely distribute their ROMs for use on the emulator. Long story short: Sega are free to make emulators and distribute their own Sega game ROMs, not ROM distribution sites like [redacted] and [redacted].