Phone Story: play to reveal the secrets behind your phone

You like your smartphone; it's shiny, it makes your life easier. But do you ever consider how it was produced?

The "radical game" Phone Story exposes the human and environmental costs of the mobile phone industry. The player’s goal is to participate in key stages of production: overseeing child labourers extracting coltan in the Democratic Republic of Congo, preventing worker suicide in China, supervising e-waste disposal in Pakistan, and finally convincing buyers in the global north to buy this slick new gadget.

The game cleverly subverts the convention of gaming as entertainment. The joke is on you, the user, as you become aware of the real costs of the mobile phone industry.

Produced by Italian software collective Molleindustria in collaboration with American culture jamming activists The Yes Men, Phone Story made headlines when Apple banned it from its iPhone App Store shortly after its release. This only bolstered Molleindustria's campaign, raising the question of Apple's responsibility for the 14 suicide deaths of employees at Foxconn, one of the main companies Apple outsources their manufacturing to in China. The ban also provoked discussion on Apple's stringent licensing policies for software.

Molleindustria's response? Release the app on Google's Android market, which has a looser "quality control" policy. On the Android market Phone Story is among the most highly-rated apps.

Phone Story is part of a series of similarly compelling, darkly satirical games (all Creative Commons Licenced) created by Molleindustria. Other games in the series task the player with depleting the planet's resources as CEO of a major oil company, covering up child abuse scandals in the church, or making money for McDonalds. See all their games.

FURTHER READING:
Interview: Molleindustria On Phone Story's 'Objectionable' Message

VIDEO:
Phone Story video