Apple bans satirical Phone Story game
Criticised exploitative phone production.
Apple has banned satirical iOS game Phone Story from the App Store.
Phone Story made a game out of the apparently exploitative smartphone production industry.
Four mini-games attempted to shed light on the unwholesome practices hidden from popular view.
One mini-game had forced labour in Congo extract the material Coltan from mines. Another mini-game had you try to catch workers leaping from windows - a blatant reference to the suicides at Apple's Chinese manufacturing partner Foxconn.
Another mini-game has you distribute smartphones outside a shop with a white pear logo. A white pear.
Apple's justification for removing the game was that Phone Story depicted violence or abuse towards children, and presented excessively objectionable or crude content.
Apple also specified that a game, like Phone Story, which provided the ability to donate money to charity, must be free.
Molleindustria, creator of Phone Story, is considering two steps.
"Produce 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," the Phone Story website reads.
Or, "Release a version for the Android market and jailbroken iOS devices."
"The users who managed to buy the app before it went offline are now owners of a rare collector edition piece."
