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Apple Bans Game App That Criticizes Smartphone Production
An anonymous reader sends word that Apple has removed from the App Store a game called Phone Story, which walks players through the creation of a smartphone, highlighting many of the negative aspects. There are four brief stages: running a mining facility in the Congo, saving suicidal factory workers, handing out phones to oblivious consumers, and generating e-waste through planned obsolescence. Apple said Phone Story violated sections 15.2, 16.1, 21.1, and 21.2 of the App Store guidelines, which make reference to "objectionable or crude content" and "offensive or mean-spirited commentary." A short video of the game has been posted at Kotaku.
Clauses 15.2 and 16.1 (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) are not being contested by Molleindustria, rather they are contesting points 21.1 and 21.2, which refer to in-app donation collection methods. The response from game studio is as follows:
We are currently 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.
* Release a version for the Android market and jailbroken ios devices.
From the publisher's website. http://phonestory.org/banned.html