Ci sono un sacco di cose da imparare dalla vicenda di Phone Story.
Gioco per smartphone creato da quei geniacci di Molleindustria e dedicato a rappresentare alcuni dei lati oscuri dei gadget scintillanti che tutti portiamo nelle nostre tasche (dagli orrori legati all'estrazione delle materie prime in Africa alle condizioni di lavoro degli operai delle fabbriche di assemblaggio in Cina), Phone Story è stato lanciato stamattina sull'App Store ed è stato bloccato dalla Apple appena due ore dopo, con motivazioni, se non pretestuose, quantomeno esagerate.
Questa la descrizione del gioco:
Phone Story is a game for smartphone devices that attempts to provoke a critical reflection on its own technological platform. Under the shiny surface of our electronic gadgets, behind its polished interface, hides the product of a troubling supply chain that stretches across the globe. Phone Story represents this process 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.
Keep Phone Story on your device as a reminder of your impact. All of the revenues raised go directly to workers' organizations and other non-profits that are working to stop the horrors represented in the game. [#]
E questo quello che scrivono gli autori della sua eliminazione dall'App Store:
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
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 no-profit organizations, acting independently.
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.
The users who managed to buy the app before it went offline are now owners of a rare collector edition piece.
A casa mia questo si chiama autogol.