DoN't pReTeNd yUo aRe noT cOmPLicIt !

Phone Story, Molleindustria’s darkly satirical prosocial game about the “dark side of your favourite smartphone” sets its eyes on Apple as it has the player actively participate in the progression of a new iPhone from the coltan mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, through apathetic Foxconn factories and finally to the Western planned obsolescence, a hallmark of capitalism.

While Phone Story is an explicit serious ‘prosocial’ or educative game, it fails almost entirely in its purpose pushing its explicit message or educating the player. Phone Story took the route typically found amongst other prosocial games opting for an explicit, direct approach to alert players to a serious societal issue: The West’s abuse of developing countries in its endless cycle of planned obsolescence. Though this appears to be a sound method at first glance, further research shows that this approach “may limit a game’s persuasive impact and ability to produce beneficial outcomes, particularly when the apparent aims of the game trigger players’ psychological defenses or reduce players’ potential engagement with – and enjoyment of – the game experience,” (Kaufman, & Flanagan, 2015) negative qualities Phone Story has excelled in in all regards.

Phone Story’s outright generalized accusatory rhetoric near instantly antagonizes the player, directly inserting them into the Congolese coltan mines as if they were literally the enforcers keeping the children workers in line and the country war-torn, or the medics at the Foxconn factory operating the suicide net, or even the recycling workers in developing countries the West sends its trash (electronic or not) to. Following each failed round, of which there were many, the game would narrate:

“You didn’t reach the goal. Don’t pretend you are not complicit.”

Playing the game, I found myself looking at my three-year-old phone outright refuting the blanket message it was trying to throw on me and everyone who played it about The West acting like a hivemind, getting a new phone every September whenever our gracious rulers at Apple decided it was time to bless us. I couldn’t take it seriously because I knew the game was BS– not entirely untruthful, just BS.

This is a nigh egregious error in the part of the game designers because it completely

Apple! They Talking Bout Youuu!

incinerates the notion of a message actually being passed on from the game. As is, many consumers have seen enough of the tired narrative that they alone bear the burden of being ‘the problem’ despite the problem being so far removed from them. Many people tolerate and prefer documentaries as a medium to voice this manner of serious societal grievance, as they not only call out the issue, but (at least for well-made documentaries) signal to a solution, what could be done about it, and it exists in a medium that informs an audience without requiring them to personally act as agents in a societal issue they (hopefully) do not support. When applying this same principle to a game, an entirely different medium operating exclusively on function of the player, game designers always fail to realize that calling people out for a problem they did not create and offering no potential solution is grounds for closing the tab and moving on with our lives. Doing this, Phone Story failed another point made by Kaufman, & Flanagan, 2015:

“How can designers effectively craft games that both provide a meaningful immersive experience and produce beneficial effects for individuals and society at large?”

Making the gaming experience meaningful and ultimately beneficial for the players and society is where explicit serious games typically fall short, as they fail to rationalise the emotional/psychological response to the straightforward, factual, ultimate truth approach pushed by the designers. The game may have performed better if the programmers took players defensive instincts into account and attempted to disarm them, rather than inflame them. As a medium, game mechanics are meant to be delicately woven into the player’s desire to play through them, unlike in film. If done correctly, without restricted, one-sided gameplay, perhaps it would elicit more player engagement than a terrible forced lesson. While they may be convinced this was the right way to actually pass on a message, the only response it really elicits is a closed tab.

–References–

Molleindustria Phone Story (2011). http://www.phonestory.org/game.html

Brown, M. (2011). Apple bans Phone Story game that exposes seedy side of smartphone creation. https://www.wired.com/2011/09/phone-story/

Kaufman, G., & Flanagan, M. (2015). A psychologically “embedded” approach to designing games for prosocial causes. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 9(3), article 5. http://dx.doi.org/10.5817/CP2015-3-5