Games can do impressive things; things that matter too. Take Phone Story for example - it managed to publicize certain nasty truths behind Apple's hit smart-phone (and the high-tech industry in general), showed the gadget's dark journey throughout an impoverished world and managed to last less hours on the App Store than certain racist apps I can think of. Phone Story, you see, comes packed with four educational games that make the player symbolically complicit in coltan extraction in Congo, outsourced labor in China, e-waste in Pakistan and gadget consumerism in the West.
Phone Story, a Molleindustria production, is as you should have already guessed no longer available to buy and it's a crying shame, but at least you can see what it is all about with a little help from Kotaku and read an excellent interview with its creator over at the ever-vigilant Indie Games Blog. What's more and while I'm waiting for another version of it to become available, you could do worse than read the eye-opening Games of Empire book.
[UPDATE]: Phone Story has just been released for Android! Find out more about it here.
[UPDATE]: Phone Story has just been released for Android! Find out more about it here.
I see one of the reasons Apple gave for banning the app was it's depiction of children...
ReplyDeleteso am i to draw the conclusion that child labour is okay, but depictions of it are bad...?
Exactly. It's apparently down right unethical reminding people of nasty truths. Employing kids on the other hand makes good capitalist sense.
ReplyDeleteIndeed your quite right, can't imagine why we didn't think of that before, those Apple guys always innovating...
ReplyDelete(decants wine, hands Gnome an Havanna..relaxes on the chaise longue)
Besides, when we were young, we *actually* had it tough...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo
LOL you gem
ReplyDeletenow ah best go lick de road four bedtime
classic
:D..
Absolutely, ROARingly hilarious indeed.
ReplyDeleteWhich does remind me you should see that lovely new Irish movie 'The Guard'. It's so very silly...
Now that I will! people have been reommending it to me for ages, few days r&r a coming up...
ReplyDelete(takes out todo list)
What a mightily impressive list you've got there. Don't forget to jot your Gnome-Foundation donation down too.
ReplyDelete:) got it, see right here, just over the Gnome Foundation witdrawal.. what we do to evade erm avoid taxes eh!
ReplyDeleteUhm, hopefully the IMF will spare us the need to avoid them alltogether. I mean, you can't tax the filthy rich, can you?
ReplyDeletenope the "job creators" and the nations "life blood" should continue to earn vast sums from the working classes with comparative little penalty.. After all Dracula got away with it for ages..
ReplyDeleteBesides we are already providing them prols with work, we can't also provide them with salaries. That would be preposterous. And Dracula is a cousin you know...
ReplyDelete..never knew that... twould explain the ears though!...
ReplyDelete(imagines Gnome soaring through the night skies in a black cape... shakes head..)
sorry, where were we?
(hands Gnome Financial Times...)
(grabs Financial Times; they will make for some excellent in-flight reading, though admittedly might distract a bit)
ReplyDelete..nope nothing could distract me from the stewardesses, spots Gnomes most excellent ipad tag..
ReplyDeletecept for....8)
I see, I see.
ReplyDelete:)