There Was an iPhone Game About Foxconn Until Apple Killed It

The new iPhone game Phone Story hits awfully close to home—the game concerns itself with the real-world costs of creating a smartphone. A few hours after launch, Apple removed it from the App Store.

Phone Story charts a course from Coltan mining in the Congo to the horrendous manufacturing workers' conditions that led to the notorious Foxconn suicides, continuing through commercial release and planned obselescence driven by a culture of "want". The story concludes by depicting the environmental and human toll of unchecked eWaste.

Our own Joel Johnson did a thorough investigation of Foxconn that ran in a series of posts at our sister site Gizmodo and culminated in a bracing, in-depth article at Wired.

Molleindustria, the studio behind Phone Story (as well as other politically charged games like McDonald's: The Game and Leaky World), pledged to give all of the money that they made from sales to "organizations that are fighting corporate abuses."

Molleindustria has now posted a new page on their site, saying that Apple pulled their product for the following reasons:

Phone Story was pulled from the iTunes App Store on Tuesday September 13 at 11.35am, only few hours after its official announcement.

Apple explained that the game is in violation of the following guidelines*:

15.2 Apps that depict violence or abuse of children will be rejected

16.1 Apps that present excessively objectionable or crude content will be rejected

21.1 Apps that include the ability to make donations to recognized charitable organizations must be free

21.2 The collection of donations must be done via a web site in Safari or an SMS

Moleindustria states that "We contest the violation 21.1 and 21.2 since it's not possible to make donations through Phone Story. Molleindustria simply pledged to redirect the revenues to non-profit organizations, acting independently."

Molleindustria says that they are considering coming up with a new version of Phone Story that "depicts the violence and abuse of children involved in the electronic manufacturing supply chain in a non-crude and non-objectionable way."

Of course, it is probably not possible to depict such a thing in a non-objectionable way—that's the point. Kotaku has reached out to Apple for comment, and will update this post as the story progresses.

[Update: We have tracked down some video of the game in action, and you can view it here.]

You can contact Kirk Hamilton, the author of this post, at kirk@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.

Discussion Threads

We don't need cell phones, guys. We really don't. If someone wants to contact you, they have a huge variety of ways to do so, including regular landlines. In case of emergency, you can use a friend's phone. So when your phone breaks (and it will, sooner than you'd expect) try simply using your landline to call people, or if you're out and about try simply not calling people.

promoted by Helba: Bellator Libertatis

People have land-lines? What are those?

I haven't had one in nearly ten years.

If you want to learn about video games, read a magazine. You don't need the internet, or blogs. Or, you could try simply not getting online at all ever again. Moron.

Dont forget that you dont even need videogames! Dreams are the ultimate entertainment device!

What's a landline? Haven't had one for more than a decade.

"We don't need cell phones" "Borrow your friends phone"

So we don't need cell phones but your friend does? God damned hippies.

All but perhaps one of my friends are unlikely to give up their cell phones. I've tried to convince them with little to no success.

However, I am speaking here to an unknown amount of people, some of whom will perhaps be more open to the idea.

Why are you insulting me? I'm making a conscious decision to change a part of my life (moving away from the constant cycle of cell phone purchases). That doesn't mean I have to throw my computer out the window.

What's wrong with keeping the same phone? I've only ever bought one phone in my life, and it cost 30 bucks.

promoted by UERD

"All but perhaps one of my friends are unlikely to give up their cell phones. I've tried to convince them with little to no success."

Because its a very silly idea.

"I'm making a conscious decision to change a part of my life (moving away from the constant cycle of cell phone purchases)"

I would say visiting Kotaku enough to post on it has a far more detrimental effect on your life than owning a cell-phone. That phone might save yours or someone elses life one day; you visiting kotaku a little too much probably won't.

Yeah, logic abound in your suggestions. (eyeroll)

Can you please provide us with your list of "huge variety" of ways to communicate with others other than 1.) Cellphone and 2.) Landline? Seriously, I want to know.

And where landlines are concerned: Telecommunications companies are absolutely GOUGING their customers with insane rates based on the mass and continual exodus of customers from using copper.

The only consumers left using landlines (Luddites, baby-boomers and octogenarians) are being severely taken advantage of.

Cellphone rates including roll-over, set rate (or free) long distance and completely free nights/weekends typically destroy most telecom land line prices.

So, yeah, you can go ahead and keep your land line.

Edited by FrankieViturello at 09/13/11 7:59 PM

I'm gonna have to defend Faren. My family has both cells and landline set up. Its 10 dollars a month for the landline, quite cheap if you ask me. I think Faren's attempts are a little far fetched since the convenience of cells is wayyy too great, but seriously you can't be bashing him like that as if he was an Amish preacher in the middle of bestbuy.

promoted by FrankieViturello

$10 a month? For COPPER line?

Are you sure you're not talking about some kind of VOIP service like Vonage or "Magic Jack"?

$10 doesn't even cover the in-built taxes and line service that the state/feds and all telecoms force the end user to pay.

Sorry, unless you're willing to scan a copy of your monthly landline bill I simply don't believe you.

And, posting on Kotaku that we should shed our dependence on a key piece of technology is EXACTLY like being an Amish preacher in the middle of a Best Buy. Spot on example there.

Edited by FrankieViturello at 09/13/11 8:39 PM

skype?

You can use a cell phone without constantly repurchasing them. I recently, very reluctantly, got my first cell phone after moving into an apartment with no land line. I got them to reactivate a 5+ year old phone from my mom's house that used to belong to my brother. They tried like hell to get me to sign into a plan with a tablet or a smart phone or some new shit, but I stayed firm, and they put a sim in the old, perfectly functioning phone, and I will use it until it irreparably dies, even if it looks a bit clunky and outdated by "modern" standards.

I've still managed to get this far without needing to ever drive a car (28 in a month), so I've accrued a fair amount on eco-karma (car-ma?).

Edited by bakana at 09/13/11 9:49 PM

Skype is a great alternative to Landline. But you can't do Skype on the go without a Smartphone that will allow it to be used over the data plan.

You aren't making a decision to not use a cell phone... you are telling the readership of Kotaku that THEY don't need cell phones, and then giving a bunch of dumb reasoning.

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