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I stand corrected, although from a policy-making perspective ScummVM allows users to run software acquired through ways not sanctioned by Apple (or owners of the original IPs), which I believe is the major part of why emulators are not allowed on App Store and thus bears a similarity to them in that particular aspect.

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It's trivial to purchase the games legally on GOG & Steam so this does not seem particularly relevant

Is there any philosophical difference in playing your game using ScummVM versus playing a JavaScript game on some website using Safari for iOS?

Since there are literal emulators written in JavaScript, the answer must be no.

Apple controls the JS sandbox in Safari, whereas they don’t control the ScummVM scripting sandbox. In theory it’d allow the execution of arbitrary scripts that can do anything native code can do, although I don’t know - maybe ScummVM checksums the games you load into it and will only run code it recognizes (and if so, maybe that’s why it’s allowed).

> Apple controls the JS sandbox in Safari, whereas they don’t control the ScummVM scripting sandbox.

AppStore apps themselves are sandboxed too. You can’t execute all arbitrary code just because it’s an app.

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